The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation’s Orchestras and Choirs

Throughout almost nine decades of existence, the Radio Orchestra has gained popularity among classical music lovers, and prestige among professionals, thanks to a repertoire that includes a variety of musical genres.

Luana Pleşea, 06.07.2013, 12:18

The Romanian public radio station was launched in 1928. It was also then that the Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded, at the initiative and under the supervision of composer Mihail Jora. According to Professor Grigore Constatinescu, since 1932, the Radio Orchestra has made a name for itself through public concerts given under the baton of notable Romanian conductors, such as Ionel Perlea, Alfred Alessandrescu, Constantin Silvestri, Iosif Conta, Horia Adreescu.

In its 85 years of existence, the National Radio Orchestra worked with other great conductors such as George Enescu, Sergiu Comissiona and Kurt Masur, and accompanied such classical music legends as Monserat Caballe, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, or Romanian singers Ileana Cotrubas and Angela Gheorghiu. Pianist Eisabeth Leonskaja and violinists Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrah were other great names the National Radio Orchestra had the privilege to work with.

Throughout these almost nine decades, the Radio Orchestra has gained popularity among classical music lovers, and prestige among professionals, thanks to a repertoire that includes a variety of musical genres.

Oltea Serban-Parau, artistic director of the Radio Orchestras and Choirs: “Since the early 1990s I have regularly attended the concerts of the Radio orchestras. I thought the Radio Concert Hall and the concerts it hosted to be a landmark just as important as those offered by the Romanian Athenaeum, and I appreciated all of them. Now things are a little more diversified, there are many venues for concerts, of various types, but back then we had fewer options.”

Indeed the range of options today is much wider and that’s why artists started to perform in non-conventional areas.

Oltea Serban-Parau, the artistic director of the Radio Orchestras and Choirs, and also the head of Radio Romania’s Culture Channel has further details:

“Competition is very important these days. You can’t just ignore the marketing aspect any more. I wouldn’t say it has become as important as the artistic performance itself, but it sometimes competes with the artistic side. At present, Radio Romania has a National Orchestra, a Chamber Orchestra, an Academic Choir, a Children’s Choir, a Folk Ensemble and the Jazz Big Band. Indeed, we have had many open-air concerts with the National Radio Orchestra, which is the most representative group of the public radio. This will also happen this year in September, in the George Enescu Festival Square. This idea has been around for some time, and in recent years we have tried to do the same thing with the Children’s Choir. We’ve had many concerts in Cismigiu Park. I would mention the open-air concerts of the National Radio Orchestra and Radio Choir featuring Andrea Bocelli. So our unconventional performances, outside the concert hall, held every Wednesday and Friday, are very important. Our soloists in 2013, Horia Mihail, Gabriel Croitoru and Razvan Suma, are people who responded positively to the initiative of going beyond the comfort of the concert hall and good acoustics and taking classical music throughout the country, thus promoting the image of public radio, and bringing music closer to those who are less familiar with this musical genre. This is extremely important, and I believe it is the mission of any public radio not to just broadcast music, but to bring music closer to people, to make music a part of their life and culture.”

The projects staged recently are extremely numerous. Here is Oltea Serban Parau, artistic director of Radio Orchestras and Choirs, with details about some of the projects she liked the most: “Besides the concerts we had with the Radio Orchestra, many of which were successful, sold-out concerts, the Children’s Choir gave a concert entitled ‘Walt Disney’s World’, which was a great success and will continue to be staged. We’ve had big vocal-symphonic concerts, such as “Carmina Burana”; the “Requiem” by Verdi, the “Collection Violins” festival at the Radio Concert Hall, which brought together violinists from Romania and abroad, who are playing on collection violins and of course the projects Radio Romania Culture channel runs nationwide, such as, “The Travelling Piano,” “George Enescu’s violin in villages,” “The Duel of Violins,” “The Golden Flute”…These are just four examples, and all these events are at their third edition, something we are very proud of!”

Voicu Popescu is the conductor of the Radio Children’s Choir, which reaped the first prize summa cum laude at the International Choirs Festival in Neerpelt, Belgium in 1996. The new conductor of the National Radio Orchestra is the young and charismatic Tiberiu Soare, who has already given two concerts abroad with this orchestra in the 2012-2013 season.

Oltea Serban Parau again: “I believe the international tours of the Radio Orchestra are very important. It is true that they are tough to go through, they involve additional costs and a certain type of international relations that cannot be handled overnight. When you work with an annual, not a multi-annual budget, your thinking tends to be less long term, it is harder to set up things too much time in advance. However, in 2012-2013, the National Radio Orchestra had the opportunity of playing in Chisinau — it may not sound that glamorous, but it was the first and only time when the National Radio Orchestra was heard there live since 1928. We recently went to Shanghai for our second time. This time we attended the Spring Festival there, a very important festival, an equivalent of the Enescu Festival, with a long-standing tradition and prestigious guests. This summer we will go briefly to Bulgaria, fortunately in the wonderful town of Balchik, on the Black Sea, the favourite vacation destination of Queen Marie of Romania. We are part of the Balchik Classic Days, with a concert with Horia Mihail, Gabriel Croitoru, Tiberiu Soare and the National Radio Orchestra.”

As this year is the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth, the National Radio Orchestra closed the season on June 21st with the composer’s Requiem. They will be back, on the stage of Palace Hall in September, for the 21st edition of the George Enescu International Festival.