EXCLUSIVE // Moldova's People's Artist, composer conductor marks 75th birthday anniversary

Academic music makes a person think, meditate and turn inward — these are the confessions of maestro Gheorghe Mustea, given exclusively with MOLDPRES. People’s Artist, conductor and composer Gheorghe Mustea said that he lives “two lives”: one on stage and another personal, noting that it is his mission to educate and to contribute, through music, to the shaping of a purer and more sensitive society.

The artist was caught by the MOLDPRES team during rehearsals for the anniversary concert, which will take place on at the Palace of the Republic on May 1.

Through an exceptional musical performance, Gheorghe Mustea will mark his 75th birthday. The maestro told MOLDPRES that creative emotions stayed the driving force of his artistic activity.

Gheorghe Mustea is the founder, artistic director and principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Teleradio-Moldova Company, an academician, People’s Artist, State Prize laureate and Knight of the Order of the Republic.

Today, the MPs paid tribute to the maestro. Liliana Nicolaescu-Onofrei, chair of the commission for culture, education, research, youth, sport and mass media, said that Gheorghe Mustea is the personality who had contributed to the development and promotion of academic music in Moldova.

“Gheorghe Mustea is reaching a beautiful age. Mr. Mustea is a model to be followed by all of us. In an interview, he said: ‘A person must always surpass his/her time. In our works there must be ideas that carry us further, that make us look beyond the horizon line. What we do today must belong to the future’,” Onofrei said in parliament’s plenum.

The concert will take place on May 1, at 18:00, at the Palace of the Republic. The event is conceived as a tribute to one of the most representative personalities of national culture and will present to the public the artistic journey of the maestro in a special stage format.

According to the organizers, the anniversary concert is designed in a different format, as a musical monologue through which the maestro tells his story, reflecting his creative path from the first inspirations to the works that defined his artistic personality.

Gheorghe Mustea is considered one of the central figures of national academic music. He was born on May 1, 1951, in the village of Mandresti, Telenesti district. The composer studied at the Gavriil Musicescu” State Conservatory of Chisinau, where he specialized in composition and symphonic conducting.

Throughout his career, Mustea has worked as conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic, and since 1989 he has been artistic director and principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Teleradio-Moldova Company. He has given numerous concerts in the country and abroad, contributing to the promotion of Moldovan musical culture internationally.

As a composer, Gheorghe Mustea has approached a wide range of musical genres — from symphonic and opera music to vocal-symphonic, chamber works and music for theatre and film. Among his best-known works, there is the opera Alexandru Lapusneanu, for which he was awarded the State Prize of Moldova.