Mircea Florian

Mircea Florian (; born December 5, 1949), also known as Florian din Transilvania, M. A. N. Florian, and FloriMAN, is a Romanian multi-instrumentalist musician, multimedia artist and computer scientist, based in Germany. Having started his musical career as a folk rock singer, in the late 1960s, he developed a fusion between Romanian folklore and Eastern music, especially Indian sound, moving into psychedelic music. He founded Ceata Melopoică ensemble, with whom he recorded a concept album. These and his solo acts earned him a cult following among rebellious youth, establishing his reputation as one of the most original contributors to Romanian pop music. Florian was also an early member of Cenaclul Flacăra, a traveling music and literature circle, but parted with it when it became increasingly nationalistic.

Before 1980, Florian was turning his attention to electronic music and new wave. In parallel, like other artists on the Romanian folk scene, he was pursuing his interest in non-pop ventures, from experimental rock and minimal music to biomusic, and exhibiting his installation art. In 1986, Florian escaped Communist Romania, having by then been exposed to much communist censorship, and took up cultural and scientific projects in West Germany. Since the Romanian Revolution, he has made frequent returns, playing at numerous festivals and composing film scores.

Biography

Beginnings Born in Satu Mare, Mircea Florian began his musical education as a pianist and saxophonist, before turning to guitar, blockflute, mandolin and various other instruments. He first took classes at the Satu Mare Art School, and first became interested in performing arts while an avid spectator of the local Medrano Circus (the place where he also witnessed the first concert by a rock band).

Among the decade's pop acts, Florian was most impressed by Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Leonard Cohen.

Lotus major breakthrough came in 1969, when they performed at the Club, where music critic Florin Silviu Ursulescu organized Romania's first American folk-inspired music festival. and provided the avant-garde jazz background to the Surrealistic poems recited live by Valery Oisteanu.

In parallel, Florian's work in mathematics opened new fields for his musical experimentation. The major factor, he notes, was his familiarization with transistor computers at the Economic Calculations laboratory and the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, during an era of "sheer luck"—that is, when liberalization allowed Romania to trade in electronics with the United States. He also played at the Ion Mincu University hangout, Club A, in live concerts with Vintilă and actor-singer Florian Pittiş. The coincidence of names with the latter was a running joke, and it was here that he began using the stage name (literally, "Florian from Transylvania"). It has endured as one of the singer's main pseudonyms, alongside M. A. N. Florian.

From its choice of name, this new project also reflected its leader's mounting interest in Ancient Greek philosophy, the ideological source of his psych-folk, which he describes as more profound than generic folk rock.

Protest singer There was a political aspect to Florian's reputation. He later spoke about the cultural shock at the end of liberalization, when the July Theses introduced Sino-North Korean-style state control. For a while, he was a presence at Cenaclul Flacăra, the folk-singing club organized with communist approval. The singer later stated that he was one of the club's founding members, together with poet Adrian Păunescu, his colleague at , and that he intended to create "a movement to bring together people interested in poetry and music." Literary critic and folk music fan Dan C. Mihăilescu suggests that these disagreements reflected a larger cultural conflict. He describes Florian, Marcela Saftiuc, Sterian and Zaharia as fundamentally different from the "Maoist" agenda of Romanian communism, and notes that they also became irreconcilable with Păunescu when the latter committed himself to "embarrassing" indoctrination. Reflecting back on his childhood attendance of , writer-politician Varujan Vosganian noted a similar issue: "I liked Marcela Saftiuc, [...] Mircea Florian, Doru Stănculescu and many others, I did not like it when we were made to stand up clapping and chanting." As asserted by literary critic Ion Bogdan Lefter, "Few authentic artists of the [folk] genre could prevent its rapid absorption into the melodious, lyricaloid and often jingoistic kitsch promoted by the propagandistic ." Florian's account mentions the "controlled diversions" of such ventures, adding that the "real folk" of the 1970s was lost to indoctrination and commercialization. Ceata member Andrei Oişteanu, who made his career in religious studies, also noted that the Securitate was at the time closing in on himself and other non-conformists or hippies.

Florian's solo music was included on the 1973 split EP Muzică folk ("Folk Music"), which he shared with Saftiuc, Mihai Plămădeală describes the result as a unique project in Romanian music: "Nothing of what can be listened to or heard on it finds a direct correspondent in anything that anyone, anywhere, has achieved."

Florian continued with live performances, including the concert of Orăştioara de Sus, where he went on stage alongside Transsylvania Phoenix and the traditionalist drumming band of Brăneşti, performing what Florian calls "unfiltered, clean, unprocessed music." He also provided the music to Andrei Oişteanu's play ("Mad King Vlacea"), performed on tour by the Ţăndărică Theater, and reportedly poking fun at the authoritarian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Minimalism and new wave Over the following period, Florian became more interested in electronic music, familiarizing himself with new technologies while working as an engineer for the Computer Science Institute, Bucharest. Reflecting back on this time, he spoke of Sfinx's Dan Andrei Aldea as the "saint" of Romanian electronic music, one "more important than anyone else" on this scene. According to its author, it should also be seen as "intellectualized" and "elitist", but not in fact a "hiatus" in his artistic development.

In the decades after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Florian has resumed his collaboration with Romanian artists, including Nicu Covaci: in 1992, he wrote the title song on Covaci's "Symphoenix" album .

Florian and DeR KuB have organized several events reuniting Romanian folkloric ensembles from Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine with bands representing the various traditions of minority groups in Romania. In January 2008, after polling the Romanian music critics, Sunete magazine ranked Florian the 11th most important musician in the country's pop history.

Later projects Florian composed the musical score to Ioan Cărmăzan's drama film Margo (2006). Like the film itself, his contribution received strong criticism from film critic Andrei Gorzo: "Margo travels a lot by train, then walks even more, [...] forever accompanied by the chirps, electronic farts and Spaghetti Western ding-dongs in Mircea Florian's music." Florian's contribution was nominated for the Gopo Awards of 2011, in the "Best Original Music in Short Film" category.

He was additionally working with Cătălina Buzoianu, arranging the music to her various productions, including a 2005 version of August Strindberg's Father and a 2008 staging of Mircea Cărtărescu's Dream. Theater manager and poet Ion Cocora was impressed by the latter show and its "fairy tale state", describing Florian's music as "a continuous oscillation between the real and the unreal." Theater critic Alice Georgescu also described Florian's music for Dream as "felicitously reusing childish rhymes". The collaborative project was later taken up for the 2009 productions of Matei Vişniec's Joan and the Fire and We're Banning Richard III (Bulandra Theater), as well as to the 2010 adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Magician of Lublin (State Jewish Theater).

Around 2007, Florian's work in art again centered on magnetic tape, used in collages and sound sculptures. One example is his work The Last Supper, exhibited in Berlin: it is a combination of three analog recordings, on different colors of tape, played in unison. In 2010, he resumed his work with Valery Oisteanu, upon the latter's return from the United States. Their mix of Surrealism and electronic music was hosted by the Green Hours pub, in Bucharest. His past work was also included in the Berlin exhibit When History Comes Knocking: Romanian Art from the 80s and 90s in Close Up.

In June, the Vasile Goldiş West University made Florian an honoris causa doctor. The same year, he returned to Romania with a re-release of Tainicul vîrtej as a Bucharest musical show, part of the Club A Festival, and a personal exhibit at the Bucharest Municipal Art Galleries, ("Black My Wings"), turned into a film directed by fellow artist Victor Velculescu. It recorded Florian's installations, which comprised brushes, a laptop, an oscilloscope and other instruments, creating the illusion of a winged figure attached to his body. Also in 2011, the alternative rock act byron covered one of his songs on their own album Perfect.