Luminița Velciu – TV show maker, content creator, columnist, orator and lawyer – is the one who wanted the true story of Ioan Luchian Mihalea to be known.
Luminița Velciu launched the book in the west PHOTO Claudia Untaru
The idea of writing a book about Luchian came to him somehow out of the blue, like a revelation. He then called those who were his friends and in a few months the book saw the light of the printing press.
It is a book that evokes the activity of one of the most beloved choral groups in Romania. The volume appeared 50 years after the founding of the SONG Coral Group and 30 years since Ioan Luchian Mihalea was killed.
Thus, Luminița Velciu launched on April 16 and 17, 2024 in Timișoara and Arad the book “SONG, a mute song – three decades without Oantă”.
In the western part of the country, Luminita was accompanied by her husband and friend Radu Ilina. “It is a story that needs to be told and known by people. Because in life we also need beautiful things”, pointed out Radu Ilina, one of the moderators of the event, but also a former member of the choir, originally from near Arad.
The meeting was also pigmented with a documentary film about the Song Choir of the “Grigore Preoteasa” Student Culture House Bucharest. Lawyer, journalist, but also part of the SONG group, Luminița Velciu told an emotional story. The volume is actually also a testimony of 120 people who were part of SONG, Mini-Song and artists who collaborated and cherished it.
Most of them are established names of the Romanian musical landscape, from the last four decades. Among which we mention: Dana Rogoz, Horia Moculescu, Toni Grecu.
We remind you that the composer, soloist and conductor Ioan Luchian Mihalea was found dead in his apartment in Bucharest on November 29, 1993. He was 42 years old.
Thus, Luminița began to tell the true story of Ioan Luchian Mihalea, the SONG Coral Group, Mini-Song and their youth from a time when they were freer than ever, because Oanța showed them how beautiful one can live together and how much light pierces the darkness.
Luminita says about her that: “I discovered that I was a journalist in 1983 when I was selected to present live the show “From 1 to 3″ on Radio Romania”.
One of the soulful shows he had is “Luminita de la miezul noptii”, to which the people of Arad were invited, including the entrepreneur Florentina Pintea (Tina).
Luminița Velciu made some revelations for Adevărul about the “birth” of the aforementioned book and what Ioan Luchian Mihalea meant to her.
The truth: How was Ioan Luchian Mihalea?
Luminita Velciu: I am the creation of what Ioan Luchian Mihalea did not only with me, but with all the members of SONG and Mini SONG. As I tell in this book, Ioan Luchian Mihalea was a character trainer. It taught me in the job I do every day what it means to approach the stage, what it means to know that more important than anything is the audience. For the public you have to take a straight position, you have to be vertical, you have to bow, you have to smile, let it not be known what is in your soul because you have to transmit light.
Ioan Luchian Mihalea was a light, he was an absolutely unrepeatable character who left huge footprints that are unknown. Trying to document this book, I have all the documentary reasons to support, that Ioan Luchian Mihalea wanted to leave with everything he left precious. And here, time solves everything, because they say that at some point the truth must come out. There is no telling how many years the truth can come to light, sometimes it can happen even after 30 years and for that, today the book “SONG, a muted song – three decades without Oanta” comes to tell the truth about him, a piece of truth because there are still things to find out.
The truth: When did you meet Ioan Luchian Mihalea?
Luminita Velciu: I met him when I was 12 years old, when I was watching TV like many of my peers who I discovered were at the same age as me watching “Weekend” or the show “From A to infinite” or “Mosaic Cultural Artistic Sports” when Romanian Television through Tudor Vornicu, a great discoverer of talents and a true “nose” for valuable people, teamed up with Ileana Vlad Pop.
Those people discovered in Ioan Luchian Mihalea an absolutely inexhaustible talent, a force of originality that came to change the language of choral music from what represented the choir lessons where we went and sat politely next to each other (we sang if we had a voice, if we didn't , gathered together) swept the people on stage, made them hear each other, move freely, and made them become a benchmark for everything that choral quality music stood for from then on.
The truth: When did you first enter a TV studio?
Luminita Velciu: As I said, I met Ioan Luchian Mihalea on television and the joy was to meet him in person in 1985 because I promised myself that when I was a student, I would sing in SONG. I went, gave a sample, took that sample and stayed. And together with him I entered TVR, in 1985 because I did a shoot for “A planet of flowers”, a play that was broadcast on New Year's Eve in 1886. I liked it there and then I decided that I wanted to work in television.
The truth: What did you feel you owed to Ioan Luchian Mihalea?
Luminita Velciu: It's as if God heard my thoughts, and in 1993 when he left I promised him that even if I work on “Viata Village” I want to talk about him, because I am what I am from the point of view of my presence , of the way I performed in my job, also thanks to Ioan Luchian Mihalea.
The truth: How long before he died did you see Mihalea?
Luminita Velciu: Three decades ago he left in a hurry and without saying goodbye, we had barely been apart for twenty hours. We were rehearsing for the twenty year anniversary concert, he had invited all of us who could and wanted to come, from all generations, to be together for one last SONG show, before something that only he knew was coming. He had felt the moment of change, he was a living spirit and he sensed that a different approach was needed, in accordance with the times. We met on Sunday, November 28, 1993, in the “Priestess” rehearsal room. Miraculously that meeting was filmed… But less than twenty-four hours later, that footage tragically turned into an archival document…
The truth: When did the idea of writing a book about Ioan Luchian Mihalea appear?
Luminita Velciu: The idea came to me on June 11, 2023, it was around 2 p.m., I was mixing in the rice of the dogs that I feed from time to time with cooked food. I had this concept in mind for a long time, but suddenly I realized that it's been 30 years since he left and I said that we have to make a book that year. I immediately called my colleagues and friends from SONG, who told me I was crazy. I know I'm crazy, because crazy people are needed, because without them the world doesn't move. And then I gave myself the measure of all my “crazies”. It took a while to get them to start writing.
The Truth: Was it difficult with so many people involved? Where did you do your research for the book?
Luminita Velciu: I gave them some time, more precisely until September 30, 2023, when the Enescu Festival ended, of course they didn't all keep to the deadline and skipped the schedule, but I hadn't finished the documentation, I had to decide for myself if this book to remain only at the level of emotion, or I want it to be what has not appeared before, namely, a true biography that goes beyond the phase of tears and sensitivity and goes towards what represents his real bibliography. Then I realized that, reading everything that was written and hated at that time, when he left, I am not allowed as a journalist and as a jurist to stay only in this phase, and I went and researched. There are things that I tell in the book.
It is described step by step how it happened, research was done in the CNSAS archive, I was fortunately lucky to have been accredited as a researcher and this theme suited me with the Mihalea theme. I arrived at the Penitentiary Directorate, I had to tell about his childhood. It was not known until this moment how Ioan Luchian Mihalea came into the world and how he lived. It was said that he lived in an orphanage, that he was adopted, don't ask me to tell you everything, because I want to leave the excitement to each of you to discover from the book, and I am very careful about this. It is a powerful emotion that you must take each propriis sensibus (through your own senses) from the book.
Truth: Where is the book?
Luminita Velciu: The book can currently be found in Bucharest, at Compania de Librării, in a wonderful partnership. It can be ordered from the website: https://www.clb.ro/song-un-cantec-amutit.
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