About
Carmen Petra Basacopol is a Romanian composer and music teacher.
Petra-Basacopol was born in Sibiu. She studied at the Bucharest Conservatory of Music between 1949-1956 with Ioan D. Chirescu (music theory), Leon Klepper and Mihail Jora (composition), Paul Constantinescu (harmony) and Tudor Ciortea (musical analysis), Nicolae Buicliu (counterpoint), Theodor Rogalski (orchestration), Ion Vicol și Ion Marian (choir, choral conducting), Adriana Sachelarie și George Breazul (music history), Tiberiu Alexandru și Emilia Comișel (folklor), Silvia Căpățână și Ovidiu Drimba (piano). She attended the improvisation classes at Darmstadt (1968) with György Ligeti, Erhard Karkoschka, Günther Becker, Christoph Caskel, Saschko Gawriloff, Aloys Kontarsky.
Carmen Petra-Basacopol got her Phd at the University of Sorbonne, in Paris. She became teaching assistant at Bucharest Music University in 1962, becoming lectuer (1966-1972) and teacher of musical analysis and harmony later (1976-2003).
She attended conferences, lectures, scientific communications in Romania and abroad (France, Angola, San Tomé and Principe).
Her music has been performed internationally and she has won a number of honors and awards.
She won the 4th place of the International Contest in Bucharest (1953), the International Youth Contest in Warsaw (1955), Meritul Cultural Order cls. IV (1969), The Composers Union Award (1974, 1979, 1999, 2003), The Romanian Composers Academy Award (1980), Meritul Cultural Order in knight rank (2004). She was jury member of the Harp Contest in Jerusalem (1979).
She has published a number of professional articles, studies, music chronicles in papers as Muzica, Contemporanul, Informația Bucureștiului, Revista de Etnografie și Folclor and a book, L'originalité de la musique roumaine: á travers des oeuvres de chambre et de scène d'Enesco, Jora et Constantinesco, Editura Muzicală, București, 1979.
Petra-Basacopol composes for orchestra, opera, chamber ensemble, harp, piano, vocal and ballet performance, often using themes and instruments from folk music. Among the 80 signed opuses, chamber music has a special place.