Marius Mihalache

Marius MIHALACHE 

(Songwriter, Producer) 

               Marius Mihalache, an exceptional Romanian producer and artist, famous both countrywide and worldwide, specialized in film music and songwriting, at the prestigious Music College Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA). 

                He has performed on prestigious stages from Europe, the USA and the entire world during his career. Acknowledged for his originality in performing different styles of music on the dulcimer, the musician managed to impose this instrument even in large orchestras of classical music. 

               At the age of 17, he played at the opera house La Scala from Milan.  At the age of 20, he was personally chosen by the great musician Chick Corea to perform a recital in the opening of his concert from Romania.  He is the musician that managed to render incredible valences, subtleties and resonances to the dulcimer. 

             We remind some of the artists with whom Marius collaborated: Chick Corea, Gloria Gaynor, Nina Simone, Nigel Kennedy, Steve Vai, Kitaro, Blood Sweat and Tears, Francis Ford Coppola, Billy Cobham, Sergio Mendez, Larry Coryell, Philip Catherine, etc. 

             Marius Mihalache signed the soundtrack for numerous Romanian films, such as: Filantropica, Ticăloșii, Marilena, Garcea și oltenii, La urgență, America, Venim! etc. 

             In the theatrical area, he collaborated with directors from the country and oversees: “Our Class” – which was staged on Broadway, New York, director Cosmin Chivu. 

              The original music of the show “Nathan the Wise” directed by Armin Petras, co-production of the National Theatre “Radu Stanca” from Sibiu and the Theatre from Stuttgart and others. 

SPECIAL PRIZE OF THE UNITER SENATE 2019 

             In 2019 he was awarded the Special Prize of the UNITER Senate, a prize granted to the musician Marius Mihalache for the SĂFTIȚA project. In 2018, he launched a pop-folk project of Romanian identity, with Romanian instruments inspired by the tales of the Romanian people.  He called it Săftița and performs besides five musicians on stage. It has an outstanding success and immediately after its launch, it was taken over in the season of the National Theatre from Bucharest and it is currently played in the Studio Hall of the National Theatre from Bucharest. 

SĂFTIȚA - Balkan project 

            The origins of Săftița stem from an old Hebrew name: Elisheba, Elisabeth, Fair Elisabeth, honoured in the orthodox calendar on the 5th of September, the mother of St. John the Baptist. In Hebrew, Elisabeth means “God is joy”. 

              In the Romanian geographic space, we encounter the toponyms: Săftica, Săftești or Eliza Stoienești. And all over the world, but especially in the Balkans, the loving glances of spiritual welfare are charged by the reflections of Fair Elisabeth. 

             We watch together the story of the Romanian people, but especially the story of our Săftița. Portraits of women of the Romanian nation. The powerful and devoted woman, reminding of Queen Mary of Romania, but also of portraits of mothers, lovers, mistresses, fighters. All these female typologies transit various stages, such as the memory of match-making, the memory of the fact that she is loved, but her lover parted, we witness the euphoric stages of our Săftița, who sells her soul to the devil, so as to forget the man who stole her dreams.  We do not forget about the ballads (Doina) sung by all heroic Săftița’s of the Romanian people. The ballads of her husband leaving for war, the letters collected in the pouch, which she never dispatches, because the addressee has no address. She collects the strength in her fists to believe that her husband would return in the dawn. 

             In the suburbs of the old yard, Săftița walks barefoot on the streets full of music and love, singing about the beautiful life of the time, about Fanariot souls and dances of the epoch. 

             The Săftița of Marius Mihalache gets standing ovations at the National Theatre from Bucharest. With four shows in November only, the Săftița (Balkan Project by Marius Mihalache) concert is as of this season part of the permanent repertoire of the National Theatre, being included in a complex para-theatrical program, convening at the National Theatre from Bucharest all arts on the stages and in the foyer of the theater by unique manifestations. 

              Long applauses and enthusiastic ovations accompany at every show Marius Mihalache – called by a Romanian chronicler “a Paganini of the dulcimer”, Arabela Nicolau (voice), Lorin Mihalache (drums), Marius Gagiu (flute, reed pipe), Nicolae Băran (base). Everybody will naturally feel the power and energy of this moment. 

                     “Please, go to see and listen to the concert of Marius Mihalache, SĂFTIȚA, which is one of the most phenomenal cultural presences on the Romanian stage. It is said that it borders on genius, but I can tell you straightforward that it is something unheard of”. – Ion Caramitru