Must Be the Season of the Witch

Nomen Est Omen Sessions (photo: Mihai Plămădeală)

In 2012 we celebrate 10 years since the release of the CD Witchcraze, the most appreciated (by the public) of the 12 albums made by Nomen Est Omen by now. A year ago we unexpectedly recovered the recording sessions from a decade ago, which led us to the idea of ​​a remaster. The anticipated title is Session of the Witch, and the album will contain, besides the songs from Witchcraze, some bonus tracks recorded than which did not entered in the final version, but also some original songs. A number of instruments will be replaced and new voices will be combined with the existing ones. For the moment, Nomen Est Omen is working to another album, and we hope to launch it in Sighisoara, Sibiu and Arad this summer, but it would be an good idea to finish the Sessions by November, the month when Witchcraze was (officially) released in 2002 in Club A. The "re-release" in the same club sounds interesting, but there’s a lot to do until than. At the time of writing these lines, (intense) work it’s done for the cover.

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History of the Thirteen

The Magnificent Thirteen (photo: Liviu Pancu)

There were in 2009, in Alba Iulia, during the City Fair, thirteen musicians, men and women alike, having the same feelings for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, all endowed with the power to promote chamber music in public spaces (often unconventional), honest enough not to gossip each other without a good reason, clever enough to overcome what divides them and to call for what unites them, gifted with the ability to ignore the cultural confusion and unfair competition, extremely fortunate to live and professionally express themselves in Romania at the turn of the millennium. Finally, for not depriving this description (obviously satirical and not at all malicious) of the paraphrased synoptic pattern, History of the Thirteen by Balzac, these thirteen people are today so famous, that there’s no way to escape the sympathy of the masses and especially the one of the employers, not even on the smallest side streets. Nomen Est Omen, Grafic and Huniadi Cantores took position on that occasion, from Alba to Iulia, in a photo for the personal archive.

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Bizarre Things at Bizere

Nomen Est Omen - Backstage (photo: Florin Marginean)

A very profound phrase says that the one on the top of the stairs is not so low as the people downstairs think. By extrapolation, while on stage, one lives a different feeling from those experienced by the audience. In 2009 Nomen Est Omen participated in a cultural project (initiated by the Museum of Archaeology and History from Arad) in Bizere - Frumuşeni, where a XII century Benedictine monastery was found. The event, coupled with a fair, gathered an audience composed (mainly) of local people, the so-called peasants, some archaeologists, a television, few local authorities, the police officer Pamela and last but not least, a beautiful girl specially coming from Timisoara, who knew Nomen Est Omen from the previous editions of  the Sighisoara Festival. The concert was well received by public, which enthusiastically responded to the show, especially to the rhythm and costumes. No matter how strange the artistic moment seemed to the people watching it, the real bizarre things from Bizere were those the band saw from the stage, a spectacle both beautiful, unique and decent.

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