Tangerine Dream and Jay-Jay Johanson perform at TIFF.22

At their first concert in Romania, the electronic music artists Tangerine Dream will perform at the 22nd edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 9 – 18, 2023, Cluj-Napoca). The series of concerts proposed by TIFF this year will also include a special show by the Swedish-British artist Jay-Jay Johanson, who will perform at Bonțida in an evening dedicated to Swedish music and film.

TIFF tickets and passes have been put up for sale online at https://tiff.eventbook.ro/ .

Weekend at the Castle

Bánffy Castle in Bonțida will be the perfect setting for Jay-Jay Johanson’s concert on Saturday, June 10, during the first weekend of the festival, in a special evening, part of the Focus Nordic program. Known for his melancholy voice and hits such as On the Radio, She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore or You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone, Johanson is acclaimed as one of the most influential electro artists of his generation. In 1996, he released his first album Whiskey, characterized by a mixture of jazzy notes and vocals with trip-hop and film noir chords. His third album, Poison (2000), featured Robert Guthrie, founder of the band Cocteau Twins, and quickly climbed the European charts. A year later, he launched Cosmodrome, a sound and image installation that traveled around the world, ending its run at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. He continued to release albums imbued with the poetic force of his lyrics and voice, but also with the talents of collaborators such as the German experimental group Funkstörung or the French genius of house music, Jean-Pierre Ensuque. The artist also composed the soundtrack for two French films: La Confusion des Genres (dir. Ilan Duran Cohen, 2000) and La Troisième Partie du Monde (dir. Éric Forestier, 2008). His most recent album, Rorschach Test, was released in 2021.

Johanson’s concert will be followed by a screening of the documentary And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine (dir. Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck, Sweden, 2023), which won the Jury Prize at Sundance. An impressive and terrifyingly inventive collage, the film brings to the screen two centuries of imagery, from the first photograph in history, to the advent of cinema and the lightning evolution of television, to today’s technology, when everyone is a potential “content creator” , and there are 45 billion video cameras on the planet. The debut feature of the two Swedish filmmakers thus explores people’s eternal fascination with looking at themselves and the means they have invented to do so, fundamentally changing history and society. The film’s unusually long original title, And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine, paraphrases a line from King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who was impressed by the footage his coronation ceremony in 1902, the work of Georges Méliès.

The event is made possible at TIFF with the support of Scandinavian Films, the Swedish Film Institute and the Swedish Embassy in Bucharest.

For the first time in Romania: Tangerine Dream

Electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream will perform a concert on June 15 at the Student Culture House. Formed in 1967 by Edgar Froese in West Berlin, Tangerine Dream is a formative band for electronic music. Their breakthrough album Phaedra, released in 1974, achieved cult status in the UK and became a landmark of the genre. Tangerine Dream composed long tracks with unique structures, opening new dimensions in sound, their style being categorized as Kosmische Musik. Over the past 50 years, the band has released more than 100 studio albums and been nominated seven times for Grammy Awards. Tangerine Dream has created over 60 film scores, including Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985), William Friedkin’s thriller Sorcerer (1977) and Michael Mann’s neo-noir Thief (1981). Their discography also includes The Night In Romania, a song that should have been on the soundtrack of the film The Keep (dir. Michael Mann, 1983), but which was only released in 2020, on a special album. In 2013, Tangerine Dream composed the music for the video game Grand Theft Auto V, which became one of the most successful games in history. Their music also appears in the Netflix series Stranger Things.

After the death of founder Edgar Froese in 2015, the band consists of Thorsten Quaeschning, violinist Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick. The band’s most recent album, Raum, was released in 2022.

Until May 10, tickets for the Tangerine Dream concert will cost 75 RON. Afterwards, the price will be 100 RON. Tickets can be purchased online – https://tiff.eventbook.ro/music/bilete-tiff-2023-concert-tangerine-dream.

Every year, music is an important component of the Transilvania International Film Festival. In addition to Tangerine Dream and Jay-Jay Johanson, other international or local artists will perform in Cluj-Napoca, every night of the festival, at the Art Museum.