CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois music professor Sherban Lupu has received a lifetime achievement award from the Romanian Cultural Foundation for his efforts to promote Romanian culture and music internationally.
Lupu traveled to his native Bucharest last month to accept the Gala Award, presented at the foundation’s annual awards festivities.
The foundation awards the honor to “personalities of the international cultural and scientific life who have been involved in promoting Romanian culture abroad.”
A violinist, Lupu also was invited to present a recital during the nationally televised awards ceremony, which was attended by Romanian President Ion Iliescu.
Among his most recent professional activities, Lupu — in collaboration with composer Cornel Taranu — completed and reconstructed the “Caprice Roumain” for violin and orchestra by the late Romanian composer George Enescu. The composition was included on a CD recently released in Europe on the Elect record label featuring Enescu’s complete works for violin. Lupu was joined on the recording by Valentin Gheorghe and the Bucharest Filarmonica Orchestra, under the direction of Cristian Mandeal. The recording recently was ranked among the best classical CDs of 2000 by The Independent, a newspaper published in London.
A graduate of the Bucharest Conservatory, London’s Guildhall School of Music and Indiana University, Lupu joined the faculty of the UI School of Music in 1987. Throughout his career as a performer and teacher, he has devoted himself to the dissemination of music by Enescu and other Romanian composers.
Lupu has worked with several Romanian composers, who have dedicated works to him, including Gheorghe Costinescu, Violeta Dinescu, Dinu Ghezzo and Theodor Grigoriu. Last October, in collaboration with the UI’s Russian and East European Center, Lupu organized a campus festival and symposium dedicated to the music of Enescu.
A versatile soloist and chamber musician, Lupu is a member of the George Enescu Chamber Players, Chicago Ensemble and founder of the UI’s Enescu Ensemble. His solo appearances have included recitals at major concert halls throughout Europe and the United States, including at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Lupu appeared there in 1998, in a concert he organized in honor of Emil Constantinescu, who then was the president of Romania.
