synchronicity

I've just been told that Romanian composer Horatio Radulescu passed away a couple of weeks ago. September 25th, to be exact.

Strangely, this was just 2 days before our mega-flute-project Critical Mass, directed by Julian Day and myself, which was partially inspired by Radulescu's monumental work for 40 flutists: Byzantine Prayer. I remember hearing this work for the first time just a couple of years ago at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival in the USA. One of my composer friends from that course burned a few CDs with some interestingly awesome (or awesomely interesting!) flute works, of which BP was one. I'd never heard a flute ensemble sound so intense, fascinating and beautiful, and I knew I wanted to recreate that somehow.

After many enquiries, the original idea to perform BP itself went up in smoke. They wanted 1300 Euros for score hire! And they all but insisted that we fly Mr Radulescu out to Australia to conduct the performance. Pah!, we said. And we set our minds to coming up with our own massed flute performance project. 18 months later, Critical Mass was born. She was a lovely child, though rambunctious at times, but we loved her despite her faults.

Part of me wishes I'd had the chance to meet Radulescu, another part is satisfied in letting his music speak for him. Rock on, Radulescu.