My work as a musician: Introducing the new EP

My interest in Music and Music Technology arose at an early age; I was five when I asked my parents to buy for me the piano I had seen through the window of a music shop, because 'I wanted to play it'. They bought me a small Yamaha keyboard, which, on my 12th birthday, was replaced by a Korg PA80 Professional Arranger. I used the PA80's built- in sequencer to arrange my first original songs and recorded myself using an old version of Cubasis VST. By the age of 16 I had written, arranged, recorded and mixed over 50 songs and uploaded them online, getting favourable reactions (one of my songs had 80,000 free downloads on last.fm). I started playing with bands, performing live, collaborating with musicians and working part-time in a studio; all these made me experience creativity in different settings and helped develop as a better musician and writer. I attended in parallel the Conservatoire in Bucharest and, at my parents' suggestion, Law School. I finished first year with scholarships for good results in both, but realised that none of them was what I wanted to do in life, so I moved to the UK to study Music Technology; this decision was motivated by my long time home-recording activities and by my work experience in a studio. The Creative Music Technology course at Surrey, which I finished with a First Class Honours degree, helped me gain appreciation for music across many genres, as I composed and mixed tracks in different styles, from glitch, dance, electronic, ambient or jazz to film music and I understood the aesthetics of different genres from both a compositional and production perspective. This reflected directly into my songwriting, which became more complex and started to incorporate elements of different genres. 

I would describe my music as a combination of art pop, alternative, neo-classical and electronica, with a slight influence of dark cabaret. In August 2014 I released my debut EP entitled 'Monsters', which was recorded at University at Surrey and produced in collaboration with Andy Denyer.

I am currently working on a second EP, called 'Beyond The Glass Sky', entirely self-produced and containing 6 tracks with electronic and synth pop influences -  a completely different style to what I have done before.

This blog will also track the evolution of this EP; at the moment all tracks have been arranged and recorded and I am in the process of adjusting the final mixes and starting the mastering. I will also be working on some promotional strategies, which include use of social media, the creation of promotional performance music videos, building a mailing list, and others, some of which might be mentioned in this blog, as part of my proffessional practice.