The music we're playing now is based on my heritage, which is Russian, Romanian and Hungarian.
After multiple trips to Paris and being accused of participating in 'heinous' activities in regard to the state, I found my Romanian nationality revoked by 'presidential decree' in 1975. Because I hadn't asked for political asylum like everyone else, I had to live and travel with the infamous Nansen Passport from then on. This wasn't easy. . . I finally obtained my French citizenship in 1983.
I ended up in the US for a month or so, before moving to Montreal with some Romanian friends.
In Romanian society, I am not particularly well-liked. I don't often receive invitations.
Any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door.
My first book published in France was translated and titled Exercices d'Attente in 1972. It was a collection of short works written and published in Romania. In 1973 I was ready to publish the novel Arpièges, which I had started writing in Romanian and of which I had published some fragments under the title Vain Art of the Fugue. Some years later, I finished Necessary Marriage.
My entire education in music was in reading interviews with bands like Stereolab and finding out about Brazilian music or a Romanian composer. You expose yourself to what people you look up to admire.
