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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Nomen Est Omen I 1996

It is the first discographic project of Nomen Est Omen, recorded in an apartament room, with a multitrack Yamaha 8 Chanels and four Sennheiser microphones. The album, released only on tape, in an edition of 1,300 copies, can be regarded, by technical features and intentionality, as part of the  lo fi genre. The resulting material consists of 40 medieval and Renaissance musical themes in arrangements from two to six voices, totaling 60 minutes. 45% of the sessions were recorded (on channels) by Mihai Plămădeală, who initially intended to produce a solo album, 45% by Plămădeală toghether with (the composer) Şerban Ian Ursachi, who visited him at that time and ended by involving in the project, and 10% by both of them toghether with Eugen Oigăn Nuţescu (the lender of the multitrack device; the future guitarist from  Kumm ) and Dan Radu (later voice /guitar / flute at Byron ), who were invited to participate in the day before the established deadline  (the device had to be returned in Cluj, a city situated at more than 400 km from Bucharest, where the project was held). The recording sessions lasted seven days and the post processing was done in one day by George Pătrănoiu (future to be in Metrock, The Order, Act, Schimbul 3, Krypton, Taxi ). Eponymous album appeared in English and Hungarian graphic versions and was re-edited on a 46 minute tape (31 tracks). The official release took place at the Medieval Art Festival in Sighişoara in 1996, where, together with Mihai Plămădeală & Nomen Est Omen, the above mentioned people were invited to attend. Dan Radu was to remain as part of the band for another year and a half and to take part to more radio recordings in Cluj and Sighişoara, yet unrealised.

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