Stefan Hrușcă brings the magic sound of Christmas

Stefan Hrușcă is a Romanian singer-songwriter who has made a career out of singing carols. He fell in love with traditional Romanian songs when he was a young boy and as soon as he learned to play guitar, he started doing his own interpretation of them. He has the voice of an angel that can melt the iciest hearts. This is why he has had such an enduring career.

He was a high school student in the city of Sighetu-Marmației when he fell in love with folk music. He was studying the violin, but he was eager to learn to play the guitar. He recalls how he saw other kids at his school play famous songs on the guitar and wanted so much to be able to play them as well. He would sneak into the Romanian cabinet ever so often and steal the guitar to rehearse on it.

He tried to teach himself how to play, by watching the others. He imitated the finger position, because he never asked anybody what the chords, were and he did this for about a year, after which he got a guitar to practice on.

The first ever recording that he made was of a carol called “Flori de măr”, after which he started setting poets’ verses to music. He made a few recordings with fellow students of his and filmed his first TV performance filmed in 1973.

But he did not get his big break until he met poet Adrian Păunescu, who introduced him to the artistic-literary group “Cenaclul Flacăra” in the year 1981. That was when he gave up being a teacher to become a full-time musician.

Today, he is one of the most beloved Romanian artists, appreciated for his love of the traditional song and for his modest character. Some of the songs he is most famous for are “Flori de măr”, “Rugă pentru parinți”, “Afară ninge liniștit”, “Aseară pe-nserate”, “Cerul și pământul”, “Coborât-o, coborât” and many others.

Although he has lived in Canada with his family since 1991, he comes to Romania every year to do concerts during the winter holidays season.

Sources:

Ciobanu, Luminița și Anghel-Dobre, Carmen, “Ştefan Hruşcă, vocea cu har”, August 21st 2009, Available at:  jurnalul.ro/special-jurnalul/stefan-hrusca-vocea-cu-har-518484.html, Accessed: 12.13.2015.

Decu-Jerep, Simona, “Stefan Hrusca: Mi-am facut viata dupa cum mi-a dictat constiinta”, Curierul Național, Available at: http://www.curierulnational.ro/Specializat/2005-12-03/Stefan+Hrusca%3A+Mi-am+facut+viata+dupa+cum+mi-a+dictat+constiinta, Accessed: 12.13.2015.