Discover the story of Richard Constantinidi, music manager and impresario, dedicated to promoting Romanian talent and organizing memorable events in the music scene.
Dr. Richard Constantinidi has been passionate about music since childhood. Music has always been his outlet for freedom, and the music impresario / epidemiologist listens to different musical genres depending on the mood he is in. Richard appreciates songs with a hook, with a message, being involved in various large-scale events locally (in Cluj), nationally (in Romania), and internationally. He was a club DJ, a radio DJ (back when there were no playlists imposed by station management), represented the record label Beggars Banquet UK (the largest independent) in Romania (1997-99), worked as a photojournalist for various publications, national magazines, daily newspapers, offline and online music magazines – and leisure guides over the years (1995-2017). It is considered that he has already conducted over a thousand interviews with Romanian and internationally successful artists to date (representing the Romanian press at Rock Am Ring Nurnberg DE 97 and several of the first editions of Sziget Festival in Budapest HU 96-99, alongside countless festivals (and competitions) in the country, such as the last edition of Cerbul de Aur 97 or Mamaia 99. It is said that he has written more than three thousand album reviews and concert reports since 1995… the cultural magazine Echinox awarding him the title of “Music Critic of the Year 2011.”
He was the first DIY concert organizer in Cluj during the period 2000-03. He managed a multitude of local bands over the years and discovered many real talents back when they were still unknown nationally, such as Luna Amară, Grimus, Truda (other projects did not have the patience to prove themselves over time, such as Jazzybirds or Rehab Nation). He is the rock band manager who carried out the most extensive club concert tour in Romania, in 2006, alongside the band Luna Amară (a tour that included all the active clubs in the country at that time, where live music could be performed, and which extended to another 6 European countries). He organized the Live No Lies Festival (in Chișinău), recognized as Festival of the Year 2007 – and the second most important event in the Republic of Moldova in 2008 (awards granted by the former online music magazine Rupere.md).
He was a rock band manager; his greatest success was achieved alongside Luna Amară, in the band’s early years (2000-07), but also in more recent years (2018-2022). He held the GBOB (Global Battle of the Bands) license for Romania and organized the most extensive festival-competition for live bands in Romania in 2015-16 (serving as Jury President) – Hteththemeth from Brașov ranking 2nd at the International Final in Berlin in 2016. Richard has been part of the organizing team at Open Air Blues Festival Brezoi since its first edition, being invited, on behalf of Brezoi, as a Jury member at the Live Competition of the oldest Blues music festival in France, at Cahors, in 2023.
The story continues, and Richard remains dedicated to discovering new musical talents, whether in Rock, Metal, or Blues – being Jury Coordinator at “Constelații Rock 2023” and invited to the Jury of the prestigious “Mississippi Trail Challenge” competition in Cahors, FR, and in 2025 serving as Jury President at the first “European Blues Challenge” organized in Brezoi – and Jury President at “Constelații Rock 2025” in Râmnicu Vâlcea. At present, he collaborates with Călin Pop, singer-songwriter and lead vocalist of “Celelalte Cuvinte,” for his solo projects – and the newly launched folk band “This Rromerican Life” (featuring Sam & Antoni, who recently moved from the United States to Romania).
C&B: How would you describe yourself in one sentence, so as to pique the curiosity of those who don’t know you yet?
Richard Constantinidi: A Kentuckian relocated to the Transylvanian Plateau who has done almost everything there is to do behind the scenes in the music industry on the Romanian underground scene; an unorthodox innovator in the post-communist, post-communist landscape.
C&B: If we were to look at a narrative thread of your career or business, what were the key moments that defined you?
Richard Constantinidi: – 1993/4. The show “Lollypop” and the sleepless nights at my first job, Uniplus Radio Cluj
- 1995-99. Music photojournalist, critic and editor at the first TV guide in Romania, TV Satelit magazine.
- 2000-06. Manager of the band “Luna amară”, launched in Cluj, elevated to the podium of alternative rock bands nationally, currently having 25 years of uninterrupted activity.
- 2007 Co-manager, together with Ernesto Bianchi, of the Bistrita band, Grimus, which represented Romania at the GBOB Final in London.
- 2008 Organizer of the “Live No Lies” festival in Chisinau, elected Best festival in the Republic of Moldova in 2008.
- 2011. “Critic of the Year”, award of the cultural magazine Echinox.
- 2015/6. Organizer and Licensee in Romania of the International GBOB competition (Global Battle of the Bands), the winner, Hteththemeth from Brașov, returning home with the Silver Trophy from the World Final in Berlin.
- 2017-present. Reporter at the “Open Air Blues Festival Brezoi”, where I conduct live interviews with all the artists invited to the program on the big stage.
- 2023. Guest on the jury at the “Mississippi Trail Challenge” Cahors FR
- 2025. President of the Jury at the “European Blues Challenge Romania”, the winner, Green Onions Experience from Cluj will represent Romania at the European final in Poland in April 2026
- 2025. President of the Jury at the “Constellations Rock 2025”
C&B: What were the first challenges in building a cultural organization dedicated to music?
Richard Constantinidi: GBOB Romania was carried out, for example, through the Sound of Music Association, which, with the Pandemic, ceased its activity due to the blocking of all LIVE events for 18 months.
The personal challenges were to develop and surpass myself year after year with what I do. To work more professionally, to be transparent with artists and to build friendships with everyone who is open to such things. A big problem in the business world is the “chase for money”, this obsession of many to get their hands on the hammer, and not share it with anyone… For me, it is not money that stimulates me, but actually the passion for music. I seek to identify artists who put their soul into what they do, talented musicians for whom the instrument is an extension of their being, intellectual people who compose lyrics from the heart. I want to promote quality music, in the long term. Life has taught me that if you do what you love, work with passion and have patience, the financial reward you deserve comes. Sometimes, relationships built over time are much more valuable than the amounts of money earned in the moment.
Regarding the challenges created by the environment, we live in times of seasonal successes, cover bands hunting weddings and baptisms with other people’s music, voices that do not sound as good on stage as in the recordings enhanced by the buttons in the studio… a world in which it can be considered that the directive is that the projects manufactured virtually will surpass the success of the prefabricated bands by the record companies at the beginning of the new millennium. But I believe that you can not lie to the ears of the listener in the long term. A band conceived by a virtual application will never be able to play “LIVE” on a stage.
In my field of activity, examples of challenges that exceeded my ability to master them would be the first national final that I organized in December 2015 in Râmnicu Vâlcea, where a possible important sponsor withdrew its intention after the tragedy in Colectiv (on October 30, 2015, a fire occurred at a club in Bucharest where there were 200 victims (burned, injured and deceased), and the leader of the Romanian Orthodox Church appeared on all the news, condemning young people who listen to rock music as Satanists! Then, at the next national final GBOB Romania, I would have had the support of the Brașov City Hall with a room for the press conference inside its building and promotion to all the mass media in Brașov county… but if I promoted the date of the final 4 months in advance… two months before the government announced the date of the presidential elections, and all my agreement with the Brașov City Hall remained in air… the team of politicians went out to the field to promote their parties in the elections and there was no one to host the press conference or to help me with its promotion… moreover, the press was focused on the elections – not on this unique and special cultural event for Brașov – and for Romania!
To demonstrate that it is a competition for LIVE bands from all over the country, my idea was to organize each annual national final in a different city in Romania, this also having a long-term marketing impact, covering all regions of the country and in time making GBOB Romania heard without the need for a direct collaboration with a national television station, which would hardly get involved in something like that… first of all, those who promote their “Vocea” or “X” would consider this competition an indirect competition – and the musical genres promoted at GBOB come from the underground – and are not considered commercial or popular musical genres for the general public.
Furthermore, my Licensing collaboration for GBOB ended suddenly for objective reasons, the organizer and initiator of the project, Tore Lande from Norway, was of an age at which he could no longer manage the business – and internationally, at a central level, no Global Final edition was organized on stage. The competition has moved online, and I haven’t followed how it’s going online.
C&B: Is there a dream or ambition that has always guided you, regardless of obstacles?
Richard Constantinidi: In any business, I believe that you have to aim as high as possible, taking examples from the top personalities! When it came to “Luna amară”, my ambition was guided by the success of manager George Martin, who collaborated with the “Beatles”… I bought books about the music industry starting in 1994 and read them from cover to cover, and, together with my ideas, I always tried to adapt the Western way of working to the virgin market, which was just beginning its journey, in Romania in the 90s and 2000s.
In terms of organizing events, and now, wherever I go to a concert or festival, I have the professional deformity that I can’t detach myself to dance or have fun as a simple spectator. I tend to study the details of the organization, the location of the mixer, the choreography of the band on stage and the non-verbal communication between the musicians…
The Sziget Festival, which I had the chance to participate in as a photojournalist in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999, is my example of large-scale organization (the Sziget Festival in Budapest takes place over a 7-day period in August, with a large number of stages, each profiled on a certain musical genre; the first edition took place in 1993… so I was at the fourth edition… when the island was still covered with grass, when the children’s play areas were not fenced off… I was very lucky). At that time, a Romanian of Hungarian ethnicity, who had left for Hungary, the late Dan Panaitescu, was the booking manager. He helped me interview Ice-T even though I wasn’t on the official press list, he helped me with accommodation in Budapest when he was single (and I was traveling for the magazine to interview Metallica in Bielefeld, Germany and The Cardigans in London in 1997 – bands in vogue at the time); we arrived with “Luna amară” at Sziget in 2006 and we were accommodated in a cool hotel in the center of Budapest and we had dinner with the Headliner bands who played the same day as us on the big stage, which is now called “Scena Dan Panaitescu”…
But you can’t get along with everyone. It’s hard to work with people! I was very ambitious in my youth, at the beginning of my journey; I wanted to do EVERYTHING possible… I had a concert in Bucharest where I was arguing with one of the organizers, who was in charge of the band Faithless… I had accreditation for the concert, but no access to the band… but I already knew the Multipurpose Hall in Bucharest, I knew the way backstage. I put the recorder in my panties, and the moment the artists came down from the stage, I rushed past the security guards, directly to one of the artists, I approached him with the name on the bulletin board, knowing that they were unconventional and anti-system, I told him that I was NOT allowed to interview them… and my plan worked, he took me by the shoulder with him backstage and we went straight into the questions… the organizer caught me in the middle of a conversation with him, and he couldn’t say anything, so as not to spoil the pleasant atmosphere – but we exchanged glances… and now, after almost 30 years… I found out from a mutual acquaintance from two years ago… that he hadn’t forgotten me!
This job is stolen and learned “on the spot”. I am largely old school and prefer face-to-face discussions and negotiations. It is important to look your partner or competitor in the eye, to notice gestures or facial expressions that you cannot sense through email or WhatsApp.
C&B: How did you look at the beginning of your journey and how do you feel that you have transformed yourself so far?
Richard Constantinidi: What a strange question. We are talking about the physical… I am amused by how much a politician at the helm of a country can change in 4-5 years… fortunately, in the cultural field, I am lucky to work and meet people at 70-80 years old who have an open mind, think and behave like they are 20 years old… and I have learned to respect artists of any age. Regardless whether it’s a musician at 75 or 10, I talk to everyone as an equal, and I give everyone the same respect regardless of skin color, gender or country of origin. I believe that we are all contemporaries on this planet and I believe that we all have something to learn from each other, regardless of age or level of education. I have met unschooled people who are more civilized and eloquent than university professors who get lost in technical jargon that only they understand!
To answer the question, as I said earlier, I still feel like I’m 23… if you had asked me this question before covid, you would have caught me at 20.
C&B: If we met your team or collaborators, what do you think they would say about you?
Richard Constantinidi: It depends on which team and collaborators – and from which stage of life… As I already said, at the beginning of my career I was bad… I was very determined to burn stages and do EVERYTHING, especially when I knew I couldn’t or wasn’t allowed to. I dug up colleagues to take over and coordinate the entire music department at the magazine.
I broke off contact with associates – even a very good friend, who didn’t do anything bad to me, intentionally – and looking back I’m sorry, but sometimes in life you have to push your elbows to achieve your goal. I didn’t kill anyone (due to the field of activity) but I noticed that you can ruin a good relationship, for years, with a single negative word. I learned the hard way that spoken WORDS (especially written ones) are very important. I’m still learning to be diplomatic. I was very choleric at a certain stage in my life. Few have gotten over it and forgiven me.
Those I have argued with over the years represent a small part of those I have collaborated with and met. I know from reliable sources that even older artists, with whom I have not collaborated, in the field of pop-rock music, LIVE, know and respect me.
I am respected because I managed to raise an unknown band from Cluj to the rank of national star in its music niche. My work is known. Then, there is the fact that I have not done anything stupid like stealing money or giving someone a hard time. I am the type of “Ein Man, Ein Wort” (I do what I say). I do not promise what I cannot do. In life, nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed.
With “Luna amară” I organized one of the first DIY concerts in Romania (at that time I didn’t know this term!), I did the largest club tour for a local band… something like 36 songs in 4 months… I was on the road from Thursday to Monday, I stayed home for two or three days, then I was on the road again. I took Luna amară to Holland, Germany, France, Moldova, Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary in 2006. It was total madness! In 6 years of working with them, I went to 300 concerts and only missed 4.
In 2004, my quota as a band manager increased and I received demos weekly from young bands who wanted to work with them. …and today I still receive two or three emails or messages online from artists looking for someone to represent their interests… I feel very lucky and honored to be contacted by artists from various musical genres. I hope to have the time to continue doing good work in parallel with my new job.
C&B: What is the most important decision you have made that has changed your trajectory?
Richard Constantinidi: In everything I do, I never say NO. If an opportunity arises through which I believe I can develop a good organizational side, or through which I can gain more contacts or strengthen the contacts I have, I do not refuse.
I strictly refuse in the situation where the project proposal does not match the contacts I have or if I do not see any perspective with the project offered.
My trajectory was changed by the quarantine and the prohibitions brought about by Covid. I was stuck with concerts and festivals for 18 months. After about six months, perhaps the only spacious terrace in the country opened, where concerts could be organized, with artists wearing masks on their faces, with the audience wearing masks, the tables at a distance, a maximum of 3 people at a table, only sitting… an extremely hilarious situation for holding a LIVE concert and an artist’s performance on stage; a bizarre reality of organizing such an event, and that terrace was in Bucharest, 6 hours away by car from Cluj, where I was based at the time. Moreover, I watched the news daily to find out if the respective city on that date was in code green, code yellow or code red… in code red, the concert was canceled!
This uncertainty that did not affect other professions such as (bizarrely) those in construction… I returned to the degree I had distanced myself from since I graduated from college, that of General Medicine. I passed the Residency exam, after four years I passed the Specialty exam, and now, after another 9 months [employment positions for doctors in the state being blocked shortly after the end of the Pandemic (!?! I don’t think I’ll ever understand the system!)] I’m finally going to start practicing as a doctor in the field of Epidemiology! I’ll continue to do my impresario work in my free time, as much as I can.
C&B: Can you tell us about an event or a project that marked a defining moment for the Sound of Music Association?
Richard Constantinidi: I consider the most important moment, and the moment that should have sparked the interest of private or even state financiers (from the Ministry of Culture, and promoting local culture internationally) … which unfortunately didn’t happen … was the success of the winning band GBOB Romania 2015, Hteththemeth, at the World Final in Berlin. Moreover, it should be mentioned that I saw and noticed the potential in two bands in the competition, which did not qualify for the national final by the Jury vote, nor by the public vote. As president of the jury, and with the approval of my colleagues in the association, Mihai Răzvan Mugescu from Râmnicu Vâlcea and Robert Benedek, a Brașov native who moved to Timișoara, I qualified two additional bands for the National Final, as “Wild Cards”… Hteththemeth (who took 1st Place) and Sequence, a band from Serbia, where GBOB was not organized (… who took 2nd Place)… Later, I convinced Tore Lande, the organizer of the GBOB World Final, to also welcome the band from Serbia, so that an additional country would be represented in the grand scheme of GBOB! Basically, I went to Berlin with two bands for the final. Moreover, the world final was won by Synoptik from Ukraine, the year after Russia invaded Crimea… and at the Berlin Final, before the judging, Tore Lande whispered in my ear, walking past me… that it was a shame that the band Hteth… didn’t have a name that could be read from the first…
It’s a shame that we don’t have a music press. It’s a shame that we don’t have a serious music industry – and if you hadn’t asked me, this story wouldn’t have been published anywhere!
C&B: What do you think sets your association or your professional approach apart from the rest of the industry?
Richard Constantinidi: As I said before, I’m old school. I like face-to-face discussions. When I could afford it, I would drive alone, hours away from home, to negotiate and shake hands with various organizers. Before organizing GBOB, I invested money from home to travel all over the country to see clubs where they play LIVE music, to talk to club owners, to get to know the local press, which in 2015 was still functional even in the county capitals with smaller populations. I went to 107 city halls in the country and put up posters with my own hands in many more localities. I took the DIY concept to the extreme!
Most impresarios live in Bucharest and (maybe) pay for an ad on a social media page, post a video – and wait for their phone to ring… I’m sure I would have done a better job if I moved to Bucharest, but besides the fact that it seems like an extremely chaotic city, it’s like living in Timisoara, Constanța, Botoșani or Baia Mare… I would be in a corner of the country, on the border with Bulgaria… now, with the flimsy highway network we have, I can quickly travel between Târgu Mureș, Cluj, Alba Iulia-Sebeș, Deva, Timisoara, Arad and Sibiu, all the way to the Olt Valley on the highway. Highways are extremely necessary to unite us and for business between the various regions of the country to be much more functional…
C&B: What does a typical day look like for you now and what moments of the day bring you the most satisfaction?
Richard Constantinidi: Ideally, I would wake up in the morning, work until noon, eat well, take a nap, and continue working until 5-6 p.m., after which I would exercise and do various things in the yard or garden, and in the evening I would sit down to a story with close friends over a pint of beer… but that doesn’t really happen… every day is different, unexpected situations always arise, and I’m not a morning person…
C&B: What values or principles guide you in what you do and how do you apply them every day?
Richard Constantinidi: In any field, it’s good to keep your word. If you have to say NO, say NO, even if it hurts. I get annoyed by those who don’t know how to say NO… so that you know clearly what you have to do next… If I have the chance to work with a band whose songs I like recorded and sent as Demos, the first step is to go see them in the rehearsal room. I don’t sign contracts anymore, because at the first offense I decide to break off the collaboration and it’s not good for me to be tied to a band I can’t work with. I’m looking for bands I can have contact with (not distant bands), who sing in Romanian – because lyrics in Romanian have the greatest impact on the audience in our country… (of course, if it’s extreme metal, I can sing in any language, because no one understands anything about them anyway)! The name of the band is very important ant. Clothing, image, a logo… I’m already going into details… step by step, everything can be put in place.
I would be happy to have the opportunity to listen to new bands playing on stage… but with Social Media, Spotify and the elimination of music classes at school, there are fewer and fewer bands, and those that appear are mostly Cover Bands, and a great negative influence in this regard is the television music competition shows, where the voices strictly present the hits of other internationally successful artists.
C&B: How was the Sound of Music Cultural Association born and what inspired you to start on this path?
Richard Constantinidi: I grew up in a family of Romanians who left the country. My parents listened to Gică Petrescu and Maria Tănase on tapes and cassettes at home… When I was in the 6th grade, around 1981, my classmates asked me during a break what my favorite music band was… I, with my home education, tried to give the most pertinent answer possible… and when I said the name “Elvis Presley” I was surprised by a wall of laughter…
I had a stereo in my room. At 11 years old, for the first time, being in the USA, I turned on the radio (FM)… and what I heard there exceeded all my expectations… I listened to Blondie, Talking Heads, Men At Work, The Police for the first time… when I had time, and when my parents weren’t listening, I turned on the radio. At night, on weekends, I would fall asleep late with my headphones on… I would record the weekly Charts of Songs and after a while I would listen to the Charts until the last song “New Entry”… also in the summer of 1981, MTV was launched… and in October I was lucky that my parents weren’t paying attention to me, and I turned on the TV to watch the world premiere of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video… Music was my outlet for freedom. It was a dream to be able to work with bands, to reinvent the wheel on a virgin market, and to do the first tours around the country with an “underground” band during the period 2000-2003, until we managed to become known (along with “Luna amară”) at a national level, through the means we had at hand at that time, before MySpace, YouTube and what followed after 2007
I can’t get rid of the music bug, which I have been suffering from chronically and irremediably since the age of 11.
C&B: What are the association’s development plans in the coming years?
Richard Constantinidi: I’m trying to restart the “Sound of Music” Association. If that’s not possible, I’ll look for another name and maybe start a new company. The world is in continuous change, and I’m trying to adapt and change with it, in my own way, at my own pace. I still consider it important to work with online and offline promotion media.
I have the two bands, of different folk subgenres… possibly I will create a new Brand and try to organize a series of concerts in collaboration with a venue – or I will look for an untapped musical niche and try to grow a festival organically, starting from a pilot edition (zero edition)!
It is important to do what you love and never give up on your dreams. Any project that is born from passion and to which you dedicate yourself will bear fruit at some point…
Through his passion, professionalism, and experience, he helps cultivate an authentic music scene where talent and originality are celebrated.
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