Once again, around the world

Earlier this year, they were recognized as the only musicians in the world to have performed on all 7 continents in less than 100 days

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 21.10.2025, 13:27

Earlier this year, they were recognized as the only musicians in the world to have performed on all 7 continents in less than 100 days, and the first to hold a professional classical music concert in Antarctica. They also received official recognition from Guinness World Records for the fastest concert tour on all continents. But it didn’t take long for the violinist Diana Jipa and the pianist Ștefan Doniga to start a new journey around the world. And now they have just concluded the “Musica Prohibita” tour.

Ștefan Doniga: “It was a tour that we dedicated to a very serious theme, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and of World War II, as a sign that art is not just entertainment, but is part of the truth of today’s society. We played works by composers who suffered various kinds of persecution throughout their lives, and which we carried around the world, in cities that host headquarters of the United Nations, which is another symbol of the fight that is taking place worldwide against persecution and oppression.

Diana Jipa: “This time around we toured the cities that host UN offices. So we went to Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi, Brisbane, where there is a headquarters for indigenous populations, as well as New York. We did this to illustrate our project Musica Prohibita, which is dedicated to composers who were oppressed by totalitarian regimes. These concerts were received with enthusiasm, and with empathy.”

In turn, Ștefan Doniga added: “Obviously, the audience comes to recitals for a recreational purpose, to listen to beautiful music, and not necessarily to receive messages of such depth and even pointing to rather serious things. But what is beautiful is that these composers that we have included in our program have managed to convert the dramas of their lives into true artistic miracles. So, the audience, in the end, encountered beauty, encountered spiritual richness, and this had a positive impact and generated a common joy for us, the performers, and for the listeners.”

The two musicians set out to make the public on four continents aware of the way in which culture has represented, throughout the most dramatic moments of history, the last refuge and most comprehensive repository of human values, of how culture became the strongest and most authentic form of resistance in the face of all types of oppression.

Diana Jipa: “As my colleague likes to say, culture means truth, precisely because, in the end, culture must serve the truth, because if we think about it, to some extent these concepts are synonymous. That is why we wanted to give a purpose to a beautiful repertoire. Nowadays, it seems that it is no longer enough for us to play music, it seems that people need a purpose, a reason to come to the concert hall. In order to win them over, to present our ideas, our causes, we always try to look for these pretexts to bring the audience together and make them aware of certain themes, which are very serious.”

As for the music and the stories told through music during the tour, Ștefan Doniga explained:

Ștefan Doniga: “We made it our mission to take Romanian music everywhere in the world, around the globe. So we played works by Romanian composers, such as Paul Constantinescu, Myriam Marbé and our young and very talented friend Roman Vlad, who wrote a piece for our tour, alongside international composers who were marked by certain dramatic moments in history. The whole world knows the destiny of Dmitri Shostakovich, of course, and he was present in our repertoire. So was Ernest Bloch, a Jewish composer born in Geneva, and we were happy to start our tour right in Geneva and pay tribute to him. We also included works by Sergei Bortkiewicz, a lesser-known composer with a particularly dramatic destiny in the troubled 20th century, and whose music, as well as biography, illustrates all these messages that we have incorporated into our project.”

Next on the two musicians’ agenda are a three- concert tour to promote Enescu’s music in Tokyo, and then a musical journey through the country, starting in Cluj, to shine new light on the values ​​of traditional music, called “From Anton Pann to George Enescu”. (AMP)