Valeriu Cascaval

Valeriu Cascaval - The artist wich plays the “Moonlight Sonata” with two sticks

Valeriu Cascaval was born in 1971 in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova. He attended the grammar school for music “Ciprian Porumbescu”and was cymbalist in the youth orchestras “Speranta” and “Martisor”. As a teenager, he won an international competition for youth folk music “Barbu Lautaru”. After leaving the grammar school for music, he joined the “Lautarii” folk music orchestra and attended the Chisinau Music Academy “G. Musicescu”.

In the period 1999-2003, Valeriu attended the post-university studies at the Faculty of Composition and Theory in Hamburg, Germany.

Numerous tours followed with Vasile Iovu, Anatolie Stefanet, most notably with the world-famous panpipe player, Gheorghe Zamfir. Valeriu Cascaval recognised very early on how wide the musical possibilities were for the cymbal. He discovered his own way of interpreting many pieces of music, including pieces from the classical and jazz genres.

Valeriu Cascaval established himself as the greatest cimbalist of his generation.

“Valeriu Cascaval is a Moldavian born cimbalom player with excellent technical facility, educated in the Soviet tradition; that is, a sort of generic Classical/Slavic folk hybrid. As such, he can hurl the hammers with the best of them, and negotiate swift passages with ease. The liner notes state that Cascaval was inspired to play cimbalom after hearing the late great Toni Iordache. With such an excellent standard to live up to, one hopes that Cascaval will continue to play and to deepen his approach so that he might one day be as good. He has the potential.” - Michal Shapiro about Valeriu Cascaval.