Musician from Dietzenbach in New York: Instead of the jam session, suddenly in the middle of the Corona hotspot

She had already co-founded a band in New York, then everything went very quickly: Because of Corona, Thea Florea is back in Dietzenbach – and politically active.

Dietzenbach – The culture industry has hit the corona-related lockdown with full force. Many musicians have not been able to perform for more than a year. Thea Florea is one of them. The 42-year-old Dietzenbacher came back to Germany because of the pandemic. Before that, she was in New York for over a year to realize her dream. But then came the pandemic. Now she is building on her old life in the district town.

Thea Florea had left it all behind. Her music school, where she also taught the Peruvian cajon as well as drums, as well as her many other musical projects. She went to New York in the United States at the beginning of 2019. “It attracted me because there is simply a very diverse music scene there,” says Florea, “there are a lot of good musicians there and the way they deal with them is completely different; Music is just being made everywhere and people are celebrating it, in Germany someone would probably call the police first and ask for permission ”.

From Dietzenbach: Musician Thea Florea moved to New York to make music

In New York she often went to so-called jam sessions to get in touch with the musicians there. “There, musicians come together once a week in a club and play together,” explains the 42-year-old. She also took lessons there in order to develop further: “The quality is really extremely high there, you can only keep up there if you always work on yourself.” In the city that never sleeps, she will soon have one with other artists Band founded, and their dream of being a musician overseas seemed to be coming true – until suddenly the pandemic broke out. “Within a week I decided to return to Germany because I just feel safer here.”

Back in Dietzenbach, where Florea has lived since she was six, she went back to work to build on her previous life. “Fortunately, many of my students are back with me for lessons, even if it currently only works online.” At the moment, teaching is her financial mainstay. In addition, there was state aid for the solo self-employed.

In addition to the lessons, she is now recording the band’s third jazz album with other musicians, the so-called Thea Florea Quartet. “Because of Corona there is simply more time and I have now written twelve pieces that we hope to be able to bring out this summer.”

From New York back to Dietzenbach: Corona moves musician to return

In addition to other musical projects, Thea Florea has also dedicated herself to a completely new field. She ran for “Die Linke” in the last local election. “I’ve always chosen them and they really try to stand up for culture,” says the new politician Florea, “I just wanted to be active myself now”. With position seven on the list, she did not make it into the city parliament, but she was grateful for the opportunities there: “I was able to play a decisive role in the demands for the cultural industry.”

In the future, when Corona is history, the music teacher wants to travel to New York again, but this time only for a short time. “We started a project there, I definitely want to finish it.” (Lukas Reus)

Further information: theaflorea.com