Ionică Pop

composer

Ioan (Ionică) Pop was born in Sîngeorz–Băi, Romania, on August 20, 1967. He studied oboe and piano at the Lyceum of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1977 to 1985. He continued with graduate studies in composition at the Gheorghe Dima Conservatory of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1986 to 1991, under Professor Cornel Ţăranu, who directed his doctoral thesis, Tendencies and Structures in Today’s Music. Ionică obtained his Ph.D. in music in June 2004. 

In 2006, Mr. Pop completed a diploma as Director of Musical Theatre at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca, and in 2009 graduated from a module course in organ in Professor Erik Turk’s class. He performs piano and organ concerts both at home and abroad. 

Currently, Mr. Pop is Associate Professor at the Department of Musicology of the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music, in the Section for Theory, Solfeggio, and Dictation. His works have been performed in prestigious festivals such as Cluj Musical Autumn, Cluj Modern, and George Enescu International Festival; at the George Enescu Museum in Bucharest; and in Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Israel, and the U.S. In recent years, he organized the Aurel Stroe Festival and Symposium from Buşteni, Romania. 

Mr. Pop is interested in investigating the convergence between composition and direction in instrumental theatre, and also in original ways to compose for voice using his own poems as lyrics. Since 2008, he has been leading the contemporary music ensemble Impact XXI, which includes soprano, trombone, piano, and percussion.