Alexandru Hrisanide

Alexandru Hrisanide (15 June 1936 – 19 November 2018) was a Romanian pianist and composer who was a representative of late 20th century Romanian avant-garde.

Born in Petrila, Romania, Hrisanide studied piano and composition at the Bucharest Academy of Music between 1953 and 1964.

His composition teachers were Mihail Jora, Paul Constantinescu and Tudor Ciortea; he studied piano with Florica Musicescu and Cornel Gheorghiu.

From 1959 he was a teacher at the Bucharest Music High School No. 1. He later taught at the Bucharest Academy of Music until 1972, when he left Romania.

He was also active as a piano soloist, particularly in the field of new music.

Many Romanian composers dedicated their works to Hrisanide.

He is the first Romanian pianist to have performed in recitals with a prepared piano.

His studies and articles appeared in Muzica and Contemporanul.

He won the Lili Boulanger Foundation Prize in 1965.

In 1965 he continued his musical studies with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory of Music (Fontainebleau, France), and in 1965 and 1966 he participated in the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse, contemporary music workshops.

Between 1972 and 1974 he was a visiting professor at the University of Oregon, and in 1974 he became a professor at the Amsterdam and Tilburg Academies of Music.

He performed as a pianist in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Spain, the United States, Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Britain and Canada.

Hrisanide died at the age of 82 in Haarlem, Netherlands.

Main source: Viorel Cosma, Lexicon Muzicieni din România.

Mayke Nas, Jan-Willem Rozenboom, Hawar Tawfiq, Vera Micznik, Christian Blaha

A Netherlands resident since 1974, he taught piano and composition at the Amsterdam and Tilburg Academies of Music.

Hrisanide's music achieves an original synthesis between archaic melos and modes on the one hand, and the accomplishments of the modern Viennese school on the other.