Iulia Narcisa Cibisescu-Duran
,). Romanian composer of mostly orchestral, chamber, choral, and vocal works that have been performed in Germany, France, Italy, USA, Brazil, Australia, Israel and Bolivia.
Ms. Cibisescu-Duran studied composition with Cornel Taranu at the” Gheorghe Dima” Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1985-90, where she then studied orchestral conducting with Emil Simon and Petre Sbarcea from 1991-96 and earned diplomas in both subjects, as well as her DMus in musicology in 2001.
Among her many honors are four prizes in the Gheorghe Dima National Competition in Cluj, First Prize in the Iasi National Competition, Romanian TV Prize in Iasi (both 1996) and Lucian Blaga Prize(1996,1999).In 2007 she earned The Romanian Union Composers Prize. She also earned two prizes as a conductor in the Craiova Conductors Competition (Constantin and Jean Bobescu Prize, 1995; Filip Lazar Prize, 1996).
In 2009 she earned a residency of composition in Connecticut, USA.
In 2010, her composition “Passacaglia for piano” was selected and performed at “New World Music Days Festival 2010-Sydney”.
Ms. Cibisescu-Duran is also active in other positions as musicologist. She wrote the book Polymorphic Structures in Postmodern Romanian Music (2002, Editura Media Musica). She founded the contemporary music ensemble Art Contrast in Cluj-Napoca from 1992. Since then, she has conducted Philarmonic Orchestras of Sibiu, Targu-Mures, Craiova, Ploiesti, Botosani, Brasov, Bacau, Ramnicu- Valcea, Vidin(Bulgaria),Timisoara, Bucharest Chamber Orchestra.
In addition, she has given conferences in Germany, Moldova Romania and Israel. She is professor at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca