Children’s concert

Sometimes it all starts with a ban. With Nico Gutu it was his grandfather’s accordion, the buttons of which he was only allowed to touch in secret or under strict supervision as a child. It was precisely this “not being allowed” that sparked his curiosity – and shaped a path that today leads to international concert stages. At the age of eight, he was finally given the instrument as a gift. A moment that was not just a gift, but a promise.

1992 in Chișinău, the capital of Moldova, Gutu has deep musical roots in the folklore of his homeland. His extraordinary talent became apparent early on: he was accepted to the Moldovan Music College in two subjects – accordion and conducting. But standing still was never his thing. His classical training took him to Weimar, and scholarships took him to France and Italy. There he deepened his improvisational practice and developed the stylistic openness that still characterizes his playing today.

A milestone followed in 2019: he became the first accordion student in Germany to study jazz and improvised music at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. A step that is emblematic of Gutu’s artistic self-image: boundaries are there to be expanded.

Today, Nico Gutu can be heard in over 20 countries. As a multi-award-winning musician – including first prize at the German Accordion Music Prize and the DAAD Prize – he delights audiences and critics alike. He has appeared as a soloist at the Heidelberger Frühling and the Beethovenfest, performed at the Berlin Philharmonie and worked with renowned orchestras and artists.

But Gutu is more than just a virtuoso. He is a composer, dramaturge, director – an artist who thinks of the concert as a space for experience. His formats break with expectations, question traditional concert aesthetics and combine classical music, contemporary music and improvisation to create new narrative forms. Works such as “Pace mia Terra” and “Parcul” are exemplary of this expanded concept of the concert.

Bellows or buttons? Classical or avant-garde? For Nico Gutu, these are not opposites, but an open space of possibilities. His art thrives on the dialog between tradition and experiment, between technical brilliance and conceptual depth.

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