Modern Tango World N° 4 (Bucharest, Romania) | Page 14

Pablo Inza:

Guitar Man
Alexandru Eugen Cristea

Twenty years ago there was no Argentine tango in Romania. There were no schools and no milongas.
But tango was because there because Bucharest (Little Paris as it was once called) imported the music
back in the merry days of peace between the two world wars. Cristian Vasile(1908-1974) was an iconic
Romanian singer that recorded an impressive number of tango songs for Columbia Records and was
in the hearts of everybody. Some of the famous Argentine tangos, like Zaraza and Gitana Rusa were
translaied to Romanian and are very well known by Romanians of all ages.
For Tudor Anghelescu, it all started as a joke – finding
an old guitar in the closet of his father’s best friend
and trying to impress the girls under the moonlight
by the seaside. The girls were not that impressed. Still,
the passion for playing the guitar marked a fortunate
change in Tudor’s destiny. In the following years, no
matter the sacrifice, he learn how to play and become the accomplished musician that he is today.

From him, he started to learn a special technique
for playing the guitar which allowed a much more
coherent and clearer method for playing the base
line, the harmony and the melody all at the same
time. With this, he became self sufficient and could
play as a soliost. A similar type of technique, though
not exactly the same, is practiced by a handful of
people in the world, like Juanjo Dominguez and Cacho Tirao, among others. For the next five years,
After the guitar passion touched his soul, nothing Tudor played second guitar with his teacher, while
would be the same for the young Tudor. As a stu- continuing to learn this special technique.
dent in foreign languages at a theoretical high-school,
he would sustain his musical interests by skipping his Since 1999, he gave concerts in Germany and Switregular classes to go to a special guitar school. taking zerland, England, Italy and Dubai. In 2002, at the
private guitar classes, studying music day and night 100th year’s anniversary of diplomatic relationships
and ignoring everything else.
between Romania and Japan, he is invited to play in
Tokyo and Kanazawa. Tudor performed the music
After finishing secondary school, he strived, for about for short films and documentaries in the same year. 
three years, to gain admission to the Bucharest Conservatoire to start a serious study of classical guitar. He was During this time, he came in contact with the first
admitted, but to his own disappointment, he discovered Argentine tango school in Bucharest, Romania, the
that the theoretical framework was too narrow for his El Tango School. His particular manner of playing
vision of the guitar. From the time he was at the Con- was well suited to tango. He became popul;ar with
servatoire, T udor began to teach classical guitar at the both listeners of passionate guitar music and ArgenDinu Lipatti School of Music. Later he was to become tine tango dancers. and his fame began to grow as a
a choir director. However, it was during this period that tango guitarist. What followed was a series of tango
he met his teacher Constantin Stanciu.
concerts in Romania and abroad.

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