Happy 60th Birthday Alex Balanescu

Alexandru ‘Alex’ Balanescu was born on June 11, 1954 in Bucharest, Romania. At the age of seven Alex went to the Special School for Music, in Bucharest. His teachers in Romania were Dolly Koritzer, Garabet Avakian and Stephan Gheorghiu. Studies continued at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem with Iair Kless, London¹s Trinity College with Bela Katona and from 1975-79 at the Julliard School, New York with Dorothy Delay,where he also took part in master classes with Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Felix Galimir and Robert Mann.

 
He returned to London and begun working with many of the major contemporary music groups of the early 1980¹s included Capricorn, Music Projects, Matrix, Gemini, Dream Tiger and the London Sinfonietta. He also began his collaborations in the world of dance playing Schoenberg¹s Pierrot Lunaire, Crumb¹s Black Angels in Ballet, Rambert¹s Mercury Ensemble, Bach Partitas and Nyman¹s And do they do for London Contemporary Dance Theatre.
 
In 1979 Balanescu became leader of the Michael Nyman Ensemble and toured with this group around the world for 15 years. During the same period he was also a member of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble. In 1987 he formed The Balanescu Quartet and has commissioned over 25 works to date.
 
Alex has appeared in one Euro-western “The Claim” (1999) as the orchestra leader.
 
Today we celebrate Alex Balanescu’s 60^th birthday.