Born on October 4, 1943 in Bucharest, Florian Pittiş established himself as a theatre and film actor, folk music performer, radio presenter, and director. A collaborator of the Romanian Public Television, he lent his unmistakable voice to the famous program Teleenciclopedia [Tele-Encyclopaedia], whose narrator he was. He also founded the only Romanian public radio to broadcast exclusively online, Radio România 3Net, today named after him.

The most outstanding graduate of his class at the Institute for Drama and Cinema Bucharest, he was a close collaborator of director Liviu Ciulei at the Bulandra Theatre, running himself music and poetry shows for the young.

Starting out as a member of a famous trio alongside Anda Călugăreanu and Dan Tufaru, Florian Pittiş later founded the group Pasărea Colibri with Mircea Baniciu, Mircea Vintilă and Vlad Cnejevici, with which he sang until 2001 and recorded four albums. He also wrote music reviews and translated into Romanian the lyrics of many Bob Dylan songs.

In 1998, Florian Pittiş was appointed manager of Radio România Tineret (the Youth Station of the Romanian Radio), then of Radio 3net, which underwent a makeover of both scheduling and equipment and which now holds an impressive collection of folk and rock albums, documentaries, and live recordings from festivals taking place in various locations across Romania. As a side note, not long after the official launch, Radio 3net had 150,000 weekly visitors worldwide.

In 2004, the President of Romania awarded Florian Pittiş the Order of Cultural Merit, Commander Grade, “in recognition of a lifetime achievement and of the devotion and talent with which he served music and the performing arts”.

Florian Pittiş died on August 5, 2007, in Bucharest. The Romanian Radio released the tribute CD Sunt tânăr, Doamnă… featuring poems read by the late artist and the audiobook Moment poetic, certified “gold” in the Romanian Radio Archives. A street in the Pipera neighbourhood is today called Florian Pittiş.

Larisa Clempuș