Gheorghe Costinescu, born December 12th, 1934 in Bucharest, and residing in New York since 1969, has been active as a composer, conductor, pianist, musicologist, and educator.
After earning an MA in composition from the Bucharest Conservatory under Mihail Jora, he continued his studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and Luciano Berio at The Juilliard School in New York. In 1976 he received a PhD with Distinction from Columbia University, where he studied with Chou Wen-chung.
His chamber, choral, orchestral, and stage works have been performed in major cities in Europe and the United States, and at the Royan, ShirazPersepolis, and Tanglewood festivals.
Costinescu recently created a new, animated video of his monumental work, The Musical Seminar featuring a live recording of the piece from Tanglewood, and with texts and animation by the composer. The original version of Musical Seminar was premiered by The Juilliard Ensemble at
AliceTully Hall, Lincoln Center, NYC, 1971; the completed version premiered at
the Tanglewood Festival in 1982.
He has been active in the ACA concert series, premiering new revisions of his piano work, Sonata for the Piano (2008) and Essay in Sound (2011), performed by Stephen Gosling.