Radio România Internațional

Tag: Marin Constantin

  • Preparations for the 2025 George Enescu Festival

    Preparations for the 2025 George Enescu Festival

    The International Classical Music Festival George Enescu is this year expected to be a genuine reference point for the classical music. The 2025 edition to be held between August 24 and September 21 will be a special one as it is going to commemorate 70 years since the great composer’s passing into eternity.

    “Every edition and the creation of the festival per se has been meant to render Enescu’s work more visual and globally emphasize his music and genius and we are carrying on in this direction. We are going to have more of Enescu’s compositions this year. A series of novel things are going to be presented during the festival regarding Enescu’s compositions, of course”, conductor Cristian Macelaru, the Festival’s artistic director says.

    According to him the festival’s 17th edition focuses on cultural events and concerts, to be staged in great numbers all over the country. This edition will also focus on anniversaries and commemorations: 50 years since the death of Dmitri Shostacovich, 150 years since the birth of Maurice Ravel, 100 years since the birth of Romanian conductor Marin Constantin, founder of the Madrigal choir, 100 years of activity for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, 45 years since the foundation of the Bremen Philharmonics and 70 years since the foundation of the Transylvania Philharmonics Orchestra in Cluj Napoca, western Romania.

    The George Enescu Festival is an international landmark in artistic excellence, says the Culture Minister Natalia Intotero. She believes the festival is much more than a mere artistic event, being also a symbol of Romanian cultural value, an opportunity of celebrating the legacy of a classical music genius.

    The Culture Minister has voiced satisfaction for the educational activities devoted to students and young artists this edition includes such as internships programmes, sessions of training and masterclass.

    The mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, says it is with great joy that Bucharest hosts the aforementioned event. “It is one of our concerns to stimulate cultural, academic, sporting events so that Bucharest may become a brand for this type of activities. Romania’s cultural landscape needs the Enescu Festival as it imposes a certain standard and makes the other cultural operators comply with this standard,” the mayor went on to say.

    The 17th edition of the Enescu festival seems to be one of the most challenging from the organizational point of view: 80 symphonic and chamber concerts, choirs, music groups, ranging from two to ten musicians from 28 countries, are going to come to Romania and to Bucharest; out of these 18 are local, 9 from Germany, 6 from various European projects, others will come from France, Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia. 50 concerts and recitals are expected to take place during the festival in Romania alone.

    (bill)

  • Madrigal in Machu Picchu

    Madrigal in Machu Picchu

    The ‘Madrigal – Marin Constantin’ National Chamber Choir is, for the first time, on a tour of Peru, until March 20, marking the celebration of 85 years of Romanian-Peruvian diplomatic relations and the Romanian Embassy in Lima taking over the Presidency of the Francophonie Festival Peru 2024. On this occasion, the Madrigal Choir marked a world first, filming a video in the citadel of Machu Picchu, one of the most beautiful and mysterious ancient vestiges in the world.

    It’s the second episode of the project ‘Romanian contemporary music in universal ancient spaces’: ‘Machu Picchu – Choral Suite from the Land of Oas”, based on the work signed by the Romanian composer Dariu Pop. The first episode of the series was filmed at the Dacian site of Sarmizegetusa (Hunedoara county) and was released on January 15, Romania’s National Culture Day. During this tour, the Madrigal Choir also released the discographic material ‘National Anthems of South American Countries’.The product contains the most recent recordings of the Choir directed by Anna Ungureanu and Cezar Verlan – the official anthems of the states on the South American continent.

    Also under the baton of conductors Anna Ungureanu and Cezar Verlan, it gave five concerts and recitals at the Embassy of Romania and in the Congress of the Republic of Peru, in cathedrals and theaters in Lima, in Cusco – the former capital of the Inca Empire, and in Machu Picchu. The Choir Tour, carried out at the invitation of the Romanian Embassy in the Republic of Peru and with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the Romanian Cultural Institute, is a premiere for the ensemble, which is in South America for the first time.

    The music of the Madrigal Choir, however, is not unknown to South America, especially to the choral movement on the continent. In 1983, maestro Marin Constantin, the founder of Madrigal, was invited to give choral training to students from several South American countries at the Conservatory of Ibague (Tolima), Colombia. Following the success of the courses held there, Marin Constantin was awarded the title of professor and Honorary Director of the Conservatory in the region.

    Founded in 1963, the ‘Madrigal – Marin Constantin’ National Chamber Choir has become a landmark of musical life and national and international cultural diplomacy. Its repertoire is focused on the renaissance, pre-classical and classical music, romanticism, Byzantine music and contemporary Romanian and universal works. Since 2011, the Madrigal Choir has been running the Cantus Mundi National Program, the largest program of social integration through music for children in Romania, initiated by the renowned conductor Ion Marin. The program, which currently brings together over 2,000 choirs and almost 70,000 children from the country and the diaspora, was formalized at government level in 2014, with the establishment of the Directorate of the ‘Madrigal – Marin Constantin’ National Chamber Choir. (MI)