Lecturer: VIRGIL MIHAI, Romania
Virgil Mihaiu graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Babeș-Bolyai University in 1974, after studying English and German, as well as Spanish and Portuguese.
Between 1971 and 1983, he was on the editorial staff of Echinox, a cultural magazine. In 1981, he became a member of the Writers’ Union of Romania.
Between 1983 and 1993, he was part of the editorial staff of Jazz Forum, the International Jazz Federation’s magazine in Warsaw.
He joined the editorial staff of Steaua, the cultural monthly of the Writers’ Union, in 1990.
Mihaiu became an assistant professor at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj in 1992. Five years later, he became a professor of Jazz Aesthetics of the jazz department at Gheorghe Dima.
In 2002 he received a doctorate for his monograph on F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In 2006, he founded and became the first director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Lisbon, continuing in the post until 2012. He also served as minister-counsellor at the Romanian embassy in Portugal.
Mihaiu is an honorary or full member of several organizations, including an honorary member of the United States’ Jazz Journalists Association (JJA), a member of the Romanian PEN Club, and an honorary member of the Czech-Romanian Cultural Association.
Since 1999, he has been a part of the Down Beat Jazz Critics Poll and the international editorial college of Down Beat, a jazz magazine edited in Chicago.
Since 2004, he has served as a member of the European Jazz Prize Jury (the Hans Koller Prize) and a member of the editorial council of the ”Tribuna” cultural magazine.
Mihaiu is a prolific author of poems, essays, criticism, and translations. He has been published in Romania’s major cultural magazines as well as publications in Portugal, Poland, Great Britain, Germany, Latvia, Switzerland, Russia, Croatia, the United States, France, Brazil, Serbia, Austria, Italy, Norway, Spain, Moldova, Hungary, Costa Rica, Montenegro, Turkey, and Canada.
Mihaiu has delivered Jazzology lectures at various universities and institutes, and participated as a guest in congresses and festivals (Sweden, Portugal, Romania, Croatia, Germany, England, Austria, Spain, Lithuania, Switzerland, Serbia, Scotland, the United States, France, Italy, Montenegro, Moldova, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Ireland, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Belgium).
Between 2000 and 2005 he participated at the F. Scott Fitzgerald World Conferences. He has also given a series of lectures, recitals and documentation tours through universities and cultural institutions of the United States (New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, San Francisco, Stanford, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, and Berkeley).
Mihaiu is co-founder of Jazzographics, a loose-knit jazz and poetry outfit featuring different combinations of the following artists: Alan Tomlinson, trombone; Harry Tavitian, piano; Corneliu Stroe, percussion; Virgil Mihaiu, poetry, bass-guitar; Al ex Bălănescu, violin; Livia Tulbure, choreographic improvisations.
He has performed his own poetry as a solo act, with the Jazzographics, with Portuguese piano-improviser João Paulo Esteves da Silva, and the group Trigon. Mihaiu has performed his poetry in Ireland, Scotland, Romania, England, Austria, USA, Serbia, Germany, Northern Ireland, Hungary, France, Croatia, and at the Lisbon World Exhibition.
Mihaiu produced the regular Eseu Jazz broadcast on Radio Cluj and CD Radio Napoca and the Jazzorelief TV broadcast. He has also served as a producer of cultural programs on Romania’s Public Television channels (TVR1, TVR2, TVR Cultural, TVR International, TVR3) and was the Guest producer of cultural programmes on Radio Switzerland (Bern, Lugano & Lausanne Studios); contributor to Sveriges Radio AB, BBC, Romanian Radio & TV, Radio & TV Cluj, Radio & TV Chisinau, Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Sender Freies Berlin, Radio Norway (NRK), Yugoslovenska Televizija, Radio France Internationale, Radiodifus ão Portuguesa, Radio Paris-Lisboa, Radio Nova de Porto, Radio Moskva Kultura, Radio Europa-Lisboa, RDP-Antena 2 Lisbon.
Co-producer/liner-notes author of records issued in Romania, Lithuania, Great Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Switzerland, Moldova. Author of musical collages for visual essays by architect/stage designer/director Horațiu Mihaiu, staged at theaters in Cluj, Ramnicu-Valcea, Sfântu Gheorghe, Sibiu, Târgu-Mureş, Piatra Neamţ, Târgovişte, and at Hungary’s Cultural Centre in Bucharest.