Sebastian Dumitrescu is a composer, performer and researcher of
microtonal music. He is especially attracted to mathematical
mechanisms and deterministic structures, infectious melodies and
emotion-triggering soundscapes. In his compositions he explores the
harmonic expressivity of microtonal harmony, and he also performs
microtonal music on the Lumatone keyboard and on the electric bass.
Besides composing, he teaches harmony and voice leading, structural
awareness of music as well as microtonality at the Sibelius Academy in
Helsinki. He is currently an artistic researcher at the DocMus doctoral
school of the University of the Arts Helsinki, researching the use of
consonance and dissonance as compositional tools in microtonal music.
Born in 1989 in Bucharest, Romania, he has lived in Finland since 2003.
In 2015 he graduated as Master of Music from the Sibelius Academy in
Helsinki, having studied composition first with Tapio Nevanlinna and
later with Juhani Nuorvala. He also studied in Vienna at the University
for Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Karlheinz Essl.
Sebastian has composed for solo instruments, chamber ensembles as
well as orchestra, and uses live electronics regularly. His works have
been performed in festivals such as Musica Nova (Helsinki, 2025), Eesti
Muusikapäevad (Tallinn, 2025), Brand Neu Festival (Kassel, 2022) and
Ung Nordisk Musik (Oslo, 2013). He collaborates regularly with the
Huygens-Fokker foundation in the Netherlands – his solo, ensemble and
automatic MIDI works have been played in concerts organized by the
foundation in the small hall of the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam.
Sebastian has composed several works in 31edo (31 equal divisions of
the octave) as well as in other tuning systems, such as 24edo and
Machine[11] temperament. He has used the microtonal Lumatone
keyboard in works such as "Songs from Wilderness", which he
performed in 2023 together with mezzosoprano Isabella Shaw. As an
electric bassist, he has played in groups such as Grand Opium and
Korvat Auki Ensemble, and in 2019 he premiered Niilo Tarnanen’s
electric bass concerto "Vaali-ilta".
