ENESCU IN EXILE - COURTED AND FOLLOWED BY THE SECURITATE

BY IOANA RALUCA VOICU-ARNAUTOIU

Hosted by Dr Mike Phillips OBE, British novelist, historian and curator Followed by a Q&A session Monday 27 June 2011, 19.00-21.00, The Ratiu Foundation / Romanian Cultural Centre Manchester Square, 18 Fitzhardinge Street, London W1H 6EQ; Tel. 020 7486 0295, ext 108 e-mail: bookings@romanianculturalcentre.org.uk; Entry is free but booking is essential. Having discovered soon after the fall of the Ceausescu dictatorship that she was the daughter of anti-communist partisans, Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnautoiu set out to unveil their story as recorded in the Securitate files, and has written extensively about their case (also presented in London in July 2010, within the Culture Power series). Ioana subsequently widened her research to composers such as Mihail Jora and Paul Constantinescu who were persecuted in the early years of the communist regime. Her most recent investigation focuses on the attempts of the Bucharest authorities to influence and lure back George Enescu – the great Romanian composer – who had chosen to leave Romania after the war. At the beginning of the Romanian People’s Republic, in 1948, and even earlier, when it seized the power after the end of WW2, the communist regime sought support from some of the most famous Romanians in the country and abroad, in an effort to gain legitimacy. Some of them agreed to work for the new regime and were rewarded with important positions in the state apparatus. Some preferred not to reply to the advances of the new power, hoping to keep their distance, while others were considered from the very start as enemies of the popular democracy. Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnautoiu is head of the Chamber Music Department at the National University of Music in Bucharest. She is a graduate of the same conservatoire (1979 violin class) and holds a doctorate with a thesis on the violin sonata from Debussy to Enescu and Bartok. Between 1982 and 2000 she was a member of the George Enescu Philarmonic Orchestra. // // // // // // // // // // // // Dr Mike Phillips OBE is a novelist, historian and curator, consultant to various cultural organisations across Europe. Organised by The Ratiu Foundation / Romanian Cultural Centre in London. Culture Power is a programme initiated by the Ratiu Foundation, consisting of a number of presentations and constructive dialogue with an invited audience. With the support of Profusion International Creative Consultancy. Note: The image of George Enescu is the one kept by the Securitate in its files. © Courtesy of Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnautoiu.