Morgen zal het al tien jaar geleden zijn dat Sergiu Luca, de barokviolist van Roemeens-Israëlisch-Amerikaanse afkomst, is gestorven. Hij wist Stephan Moens te bekoren met zijn uitvoering van de partita’s van Bach ten tijde van “De Muziekkrant”, maar sindsdien heb ik niets meer over hem vernomen.
Sergiu Luca was born in Bucharest, Romania, but his family moved to Israel at his age of 7, and as a 9 year old he debuted with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra. Before going to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute with Ivan Galamian he studied in London and Switzerland. His American debut was Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1965, on which occasion he was chosen by Leonard Bernstein to play its first movement with him conducting the New York Philharmonic later that year. During his career he recorded J.S.Bach’s entire oeuvre for solo violin, the Brandenburg Concertos (with Pablo Casals), and a portion of the romantic and 20th century repertoire. In 1971 he launched the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, Oregon, that is dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music. Over zijn overstap naar de historische uitvoeringspraktijk weet Wikipedia niets te melden, al zegt men wel dat hij an early music pioneer was who first introduced playing J.S.Bach’s violin oeuvre on period instrument.
