Vlad Maistorovici

"...just the right amount of 21st-century flavoured spice..."

- BACHTRACK

“Catchy and sonorous” (Musical America), featuring “vivid contrasts” (Financial Times) and “clarity of expression” (AM Bucharest), his compositions are published by Universal Edition and championed by world-class ensembles and artists: from the “wonderful swirl of sounds” (The Classical Reviewer) of Halo (London Symphony Orchestra), to the “soul-filled creations that added just the right amount of 21st-century flavoured spice” (Bachtrack) of Carols Without Words (O/Modernt at Wigmore Hall), Maistorovici “strikes a different note” (The Daily Telegraph). In 2023 Maistorovici created and conducted “Metamorfose after M.C.Escher“ at the Tuinzaal of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag with the New European Ensemble and motion-reactive video projections, as part of the 125th anniversary exhibition of M.C. Escher, reuniting the music of Bach, Webern, Pärt and Maistorovici in “a musical/visual spectacle par excellence”, “a brilliant concept, brilliantly executed”, “a really enjoyable concert” (ArtsTalk Magazine). In 2019, Maistorovici performed the Dutch premiere of Concert Transilvan and directed the Enescu Octet for chamber orchestra with the Young European Strings Camerata at the Diligentia Theatre Den Haag, on the occasion of the Romanian Presidency to the EU Council. In 2024 he composed B.A.C.H., Passacaglia for solo violin, commissioned by the Enescu Festival as the mandatory work at the Enescu International Violin Competition. His musical arrangements cover a wide range of styles, from orchestrations of Enescu or Kodály, to genre-bending reworkings of Bach and cross-over reimaginings of Queen. His scores have been championed by London Symphony Orchestra, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée, Campos do Jordao Festival Orchestra, New European Ensemble of The Hague, Young European Strings Camerata Bruxelles, Sinfonia Cymru Cardiff, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, Estonian Sinfonietta, Bucharest Radio Orchestra at major venues and festivals, such as South Bank Centre, Musiekgebouw Amsterdam, Salle Flagey Bruxelles, Studio Ernest Ansermet Geneva, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Romanian Athenaeum Bucharest, Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, Merkin Hall New York, Verbier Festival, Spoleto Festival, Enescu Festival, by conductors and soloists such as Neil Thomson, Clement Power, Jonathan Berman, Jonathan Bloxham, Michael Wendeberg, Thierry Fischer, Gottfried Rabl, Baldur Brönnimann, Gabriel Bebeșelea, Radu Paponiu, and many others. Born in Romania (1985), he is a former pupil of The Yehudi Menuhin School. At the Royal College of Music in London he studied composition with Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Cole and Richard Causton, violin with Felix Andrievsky, and conducting with Patrick Bailey. He advanced his composition studies with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Magnus Lindberg in Aldeburgh, Giaccomo Manzoni in Florence and Dan Dediu in Bucharest as a PHD in Music, while continuing his performance studies with Pierre Amoyal on a Soloist Master degree at the Haute École de Musique Lausanne, chamber music with Bruno Canino at Fiesole Music School Florence and in influential performance masterclasses with Boris Kuschnir, Anna Chumachenko, Gordan Nikolich, Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel, Zakhar Bronn, Ferenc Rados, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Lera Auerbach at courses such as Verbier Academy, Keshet Eilon and others. In 2025, Maistorovici was awarded the Romanian Academy Award, and in 2026 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is also a winner of numerous awards, among them the George Enescu Composition Competition, Clive Christian Composition Award, Golden Medal of the Berliner International Competition, The Tillett Trust Performer Platform, Young Concert Artist Trust and others. Maistorovici has given performance and composition masterclasses at the Royal College of Music London, Lilla Akademien Stokholm, Dartington International Summer School, Geneva Conservatoire and Bucharest National University of Music. In 2015 he founded vibrate!festival with pianist Diana Ionescu, an international event that brings together world-class innovative classical artists, reaching out to new audiences through eclectic programming and cross-discipline projects in alternative spaces.

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BACHTRACK

Wigmore Hall, O/Modernt

An early programme showstopper marrying all this neatly together was Kodály’s 1938 setting of the traditional night song, Esti dal, freshly rearranged for strings accompaniment by contemporary Romanian violinist-composer Vlad Hirlav Maistorovici: slow-moving chordal serenity; Florin’s accordion sliding in underneath so smoothly that, initially, you heard the added depth to the string sound without registering what had caused it; Beskow’s vocal legato poetry; the instrumentalists eventually adding a further layer of texture through humming.

Maistorovici was the non-Brahms composer star of the show. Besides his rearrangements of Kodály and Kálmán Hungarian folk settings, the programme was punctuated by his Carols without Words based on Romanian popular carols. All were all soul-filled creations that both honoured the darkly Slavic sound worlds of the originals, and added just the right amount of 21st-century flavoured spice via harmonic scrunches and textural complexities. Seated at the back of the hall, he was warmly applauded when Ticciati got him to stand up.

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ARTSTALK MAGAZINE HOLLAND

Escher in The Hague

“The New European Ensemble has created a musical/visual spectacle par excellence. (…) They created Metamorfosen in collaboration with Carolien Teunisse of Deframe, who did the visuals, and conductor Vlad Maistorovici.

The concert took place in the main central hall of the Kunstmuseum where a stage and the orchestra had been set up behind a huge gauze. The wonderful thing about the theatrical use of gauze is that if it is lit from the front it is opaque and appears solid but if lit from behind is totally transparent. Both these aspects were exploited in Metamorfosen with the orchestra dimly lit with soloists occasionally being in the spotlight. Meanwhile images by Ms Teunisse were projected on the gauze, all of which were based on, or inspired by, the work of MC Escher. A brilliant concept, brilliantly executed. (...)

There was also work from D. Heinichen, Webern and Mr Maistorovici himself. His piece Metamorfose after MC Escher began with what seemed like the orchestra tuning up again as the images metamorphosed from chess board to tortoises and cats. The music became much more melodic, being almost Gershwinesque at times.

This was a really enjoyable concert. My only criticism, and one I don’t use very often, is that it was too short; I could have done with another half hour. Further performances are planned so watch out for those.”

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"...a wonderful swirl of sounds..."

- THE CLASSICAL REVIEWER