Founded in 1950 upon the initiative of conductor Constantin Silvestri, director of the Philharmonic at that time, the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir is a large musical ensemble whose repertoire includes a cappella, vocal-symphonic and opera works pertaining to a multitude of musical periods and movements, from the Renaissance to 21st century music. The first conductors of the choir were Ștefan Mureșianu, Dumitru D. Botez and Vasile Pântea, and since 1997 the musicians have been conducted by Iosif Ion Prunner.

Over its 70 years of existence, the ensemble from Bucharest has performed many of the masterpieces of the choral and vocal symphonic genres, from Monteverdi to Bach, from Haydn to Berlioz, Brahms or Mahler, as well as modern and contemporary representative works: Missa and Symphony no. 3, “Kaddish” by Leonard Bernstein, works by George Enescu, Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Ștefan Niculescu or Requiem and The Seven Gates of Jerusalem by Krzysztof Penderecki, under the direction of the composer. Opera music is performed in concert or semi-staged versions, and the works performed include The Abduction from the Seraglio, Fidelio, Norma, Parsifal (acts I and III), Moses and Aaron, Wozzeck and Oedipus Rex.

Apart from the permanent season at the Romanian Athenaeum where it performs with the orchestra, the Philharmonic Choir has performed both at the George Enescu International Festival and as a guest ensemble in various projects with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in Moscow, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Berlin Philharmonic. The choir’s history is crowned by collaborations with important names in the conducting world, including George Georgescu, Igor Markevitch, Georges Prêtre, Lawrence Foster, Sergiu Comissiona, Ion Marin, Cristian Mandeal, Ghenadi Rojdestvenski, Michel Plaçon, Christian Badea, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Neville Mariner, Vladimir Jurowski, Kirill Petrenko, Paavo Järvi and Vasily Petrenko.

Among recent achievements is the performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Four Sacred Pieces with the Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim (2013), the concert version of George Enescu’s Oedipe in 2017 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the George Enescu Festival and at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the semi-staged version of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve with the Radio Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the Berlin Philharmonic.

The discography of the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir includes recordings by Electrecord, Arte Nova and the Romanian Radio Broadcasting: Mozart’s Requiem, the Enescu vocal-symphonic complete, motets by Bruckner and Brahms. Some of the Philharmonic Choir’s concerts have also been featured by France Music and the U.E.R.

The variation of the repertoire, the members’ constant interest in improving their skills, who not infrequently perform the solo parts in vocal-symphonic concerts, along with the collaboration with eminent figures in the world of conducting, are just some of the factors that have contributed, over the years, to the shaping of a remarkable artistic identity of the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir. An impressive number of musicians, opera, operetta and vocal-symphonic soloists, teachers and musicologists began their careers as members of the Philharmonic Choir, and among them we mention: Iulia Isaev, Laura Niculescu, Elena Cernei, Ștefan Ignat, Marius Rinzler, etc.