Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea (*1959): Anna Livia Plurabelle. Fantasy for orchestra (2025)

Here you can find my playlist for Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea's compositions:    • Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea   Here is a playlist for her performances as a pianist:    • Livia Teodorescu-Ciocanea  - Piano   The composer writes about this work: "The piece, composed in November 2025 as a commission from the Union of the Romanian Composers and Musicologists, draws inspiration from James Joyce’s character Anna Livia Plurabelle. She embodies Dublin’s River Liffey, symbolizing femininity, the inexorable flow of time, perpetual change, and the outpouring of existence into eternity. The composition unfolds in three interconnected parts, each titled after Joyce’s text from Finnegans Wake: 1) 'Anna was …', 2) 'Livia is …', and 3) 'Plurabelle is to be …'. Each part is further divided into two subsections named after Joyce’s inventive words: 'Fieluhr? Filou!'; 'Allalivial, Allaluvial'; 'Ussa, Ulla'. The first part follows Joyce’s description: 'a chattering dialogue across the river by two washerwomen who, as night falls, become a tree and a stone.' The second part bursts with lively energy that gradually dissolves into whispers. The third part begins in a petrified atmosphere before transforming into a frenetic Irish dance. In crafting this piece, I aimed to relate the orchestral colors to Joyce's nonlinear imagination." Anna Livia Plurabelle. Fantezie pentru orchestră (2025) Orchestra Română de Tineret (Romanian Youth Orchestra), conducted by Ana Spasovska recording of the first performance (Bucharest, Ateneul Român, August 28, 2026) image: Éamonn O'Doherty, Anna Livia (1988 - Dublin, Croppies Memorial Park)