Cătălin Tîrcolea - 1981 - Zboruri

Born in 1953, Catalin Tircolea began to study the violin at the age of 3 and had his first televised recital at 5 years, in 1958, playing Mozart. He continued to learn the violin at the High School, but gave it up in 1970 in behalf of a Romanian folk music instrument which fascinated him - the Pan-pipe, (Panflote, Flute de Pan) — his idea being to demonstrate its expressive possibilities in the spheres of symphonic, chamber and jazz music. A self-taught what concerns the technique of this instrument, he studied with tenacity, using piano and violin scores. In 1971 he participated at the folklore Festival in Koper (Yugoslavia), obtaining the 1st prize. During the next year, 1972, Catalin Tircolea toured Switzerland and Austria together with Benone Damian's band. Between 1973 and 1975 he had an engagement in Japan, playing a large repertoire : classic, folk, cafe-concert. In 1975 he began composition studies at the Bucharest "Ciprian Porumbescu" Conservatoire (with professors Gheorghe Dumitrescu, $tefan Niculescu, Liviu Rusu), finishing them in 1979 with the highest marks. In the meantime, in 1976, he took part, with his own band, at the Swiss folk music Festivals in Orbe and Lenzburg. Starting with 1978, Catalin Tircolea undertook a rich recording activity : for the Romanian "Electrecord" company, he played the solo part in Ramon Tavernier's LP entitled "Pan-pipe in Jazz", whereas in West Germany he recorded the LP "Fly with me" with the "Supermax" group, and afterwards, with the famous Dutch keyboard virtuoso, Rick van der Lynden the "Variations" album. In 1979, other two LPs, produced also in West Germany, were added to his discography : one of baroque, the other of folk music, both for Pan-pipe and organ. In 1981, again with "Electrecord", a new record followed, with Romanian folk music "hits", and in West Germany, at Dusseldorf, a digital recorded Pan-pipe and organ LP, with a repertoire reaching from musical classicism and romanticism up to impressionism. During the same year 1981, he took part at the Montreux Festival in Switzerland with the "WelI-tempered Pan-pipe", a colour production of the Romanian Television.

"Flights" this new LP, recorded between December 28th 1980 and June 6th 1981 in cooperation with a team of distinguished instrumentalists, selected from the elite of Romanian jazzmen and rock-musicians, especially with another young composer and pianist - Mircea Tiberian —, concentrates through its seven items a great stylistic variety, outlining especially jazz and jazz-rock. At the threshold of his artistic maturity, Catalin Tircolea - soloist of the Romanian "Electrecord" Company - asserts himself as a virtuoso, proving the unexpected technical possibilities of this singular and extremely difficult instrument. His demonstrations as principal soloist and conductor of the group, as well as a composer, are subordinated to an expressive aim: to use the refinement of the sonorous expression, conceived in subtle colour shades, in order to emphasize - in time and space — the fineness and the supreme elegance of the Flight.