Hungarian musicology in Romania is fulfilling a long-standing obligation by establishing the Archive of Transylvanian Composers. Thanks to the joint initiative of composer Boldizsár Csíky, the Hungarian Opera of Cluj, and the Erdélyi Hagyományok Háza Foundation (Transylvanian Heritage House), it is now possible to collect, preserve, research, digitalize, and promote the heritage of our composers. Although there has been a clear demand for this over the past decades—given our knowledge of the exceptionally rich and multifaceted materials left by generations of Transylvanian composers—the official institutional framework enabling the dignified reception, housing, and processing of musical manuscripts has been lacking until now.
Of the two founding institutions, the Hungarian Opera of Cluj has placed a special emphasis on the tangible and intangible heritage of Transylvanian musical culture ever since its inception. The Erdélyi Hagyományok Háza Foundation, as a dynamically developing professional organization, provides the background for data processing and media dissemination, in cooperation with prestigious professional organizations in Budapest.
Operating with working hubs in Cluj-Napoca and Târgu Mureș, the scope of collection for the Archive of Transylvanian Composers primarily includes manuscript or copied compositions by 20th and 21st-century Transylvanian composers. The professional processing of these works, making them accessible to researchers, and presenting them to the wider public are both the goal and the duty of the collection. Our archive is open to receiving full or partial estates of Transylvanian composers, performers, and music historians.