Şerban Nichifor

Șerban Nichifor OCB (born 25 August 1954) is a Romanian composer, cellist and music educator.

Șerban Nichifor was born on 25 August 1954 to Ermil Nichifor (1916-1997) and Livia Nichifor, née Balint (1922-2017) in Bucharest, Romania. Both his parents were physicians. His father was also a musician and conductor of the Orchestra of Physicians in Bucharest.

Nichifor studied at the National University of Music Bucharest from 1973 to 1977 and took composition courses in 1978, 1980 and 1984 in Darmstadt, Germany. In 1994, he received a Ph.D. in Musicology from National University of Music and from 1990 to 1994, also studied at the Theology Faculty of the University of Bucharest. In 2015, he gets the summa cum laude skills in conducting PhDs, with the thesis SHOAH - The Holocaust Reflected in My Musical Creation.

In 2016, Nichifor signed an open letter asking that Oana Stănciulescu not be named to the Romanian Television administration. The letter cited her admiration for Radu Gyr and Vintilă Horia, figures associated with the far-right during the 1940s. The following year, he signed a similar document, objecting to the hiring of Ionuț Țene as head of cultural affairs at Cluj-Napoca City Hall. The signatories took issue with Țene's previous position as editor of Napoca News, described in the letter as a "nationalist extremist publication".

He has composed many works dedicated to the victims of The Holocaust. According to musicologist Octavian Cosma, Nichifor's eclectic style is based on neoromanticism but has included elements of jazz (in his Third and Fourth Symphonies) and the use of tape recordings as in his opera Domnişoara Cristina. In the 1990s, he "developed a simplified style employing themes reminiscent of Byzantine chant."

Nichifor is a professor at National University of Music. He married the late Romanian musician and composer Liana Alexandra in 1978. They performed together as cellist and pianist in the Duo Intermedia from 1990 and were co-directors of the Nuova Musica Consonante - Living Music Foundation Festival.

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