Romanian jazz figure Florian Lungu, known as Moșu, dies at age 83

A death announced by fellow musicians

Florian Lungu, known to listeners as "Moșu", died at the age of 83, according to Romania Actualități, the public radio station cited by ProTV in reports published on 9 November. Musician Mike Godoroja, a close friend with whom Lungu presented programmes at TVR, was among the first to make the death public, posting a message on Facebook. His post placed Lungu's death alongside those of two other figures of Romanian jazz, Tiberian and Nicolas Simion.

“I don't know how to write this text... Florian Lungu has left... Moșu... this morning!”

Mediafax and Adevărul both carried the news on 9 November, describing Lungu as one of the most important voices of Romanian jazz, a figure who had served as a reference point for musicians for six decades.

Radio and television career

Lungu was born on 5 January 1943 in Bucharest, into a family of musicians: his father was a composer and choir conductor, and his mother a pianist who helped found the Madrigal choir. He was admitted to the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in 1960, passed his state examination in 1966, and taught at the music high school in Giurgiu in 1966 and 1967. After losing a competition for a sound-engineer post to Florin Bogardo, he joined Radio România in 1967 as a music editor. From 1970 he edited and presented programmes on light music and jazz, and over the following decades he made thousands of radio and television programmes, wrote specialist articles and presented numerous festivals and jazz concerts.

Heritage and teaching

Mediafax describes Lungu as one of the organisers and keepers of the jazz sound archive of Radiodifuziunea Română, a collection that helped keep many recordings in circulation and part of the country's cultural memory. He also worked as an associate professor at the National University of Music in Bucharest, Cluj and Timișoara, where he trained generations of musicians who later established themselves in Romanian jazz. He authored two books, "Disco Ghid Rock", written with Daniela Caraman-Fotea, and "Jazz Calendar". ProTV reports that in 2003 he received the Premiul de excelență for lifetime audiovisual work and the Ordinul "Meritul Cultural" at the rank of Cavaler.

Festivals and legacy

Adevărul states that his name became linked with almost all jazz festivals and concerts in Romania from the late 1970s to the present. He presented most of the festivals in Bucharest, Sibiu, Brașov, Cluj, Iași, Timișoara, Craiova and Piatra Neamț, along with events in Costinești, Gărâna, Lugoj and Victoria. Mediafax describes him as a storyteller of music who could explain why an interpretation, an artist or an improvisation mattered, and says his voice and knowledge made jazz familiar to generations of listeners. Adevărul also notes that a jazz programme was hard to introduce at the radio in the late 1960s, because Cornel Chiriac had gone to Germany, where he continued jazz broadcasts at Radio Europa Liberă.