Dan Dediu: The Opening Concert Showed That Heroism Is Intact | The Competitors in the Cello Section Entered the Scene Yesterday: 54 mini-recitals are accessible free of charge on www.festivalenescu.ro between August 30 and September 4, 2020
The George Enescu International Competition opened yesterday the First Round of its Cello Section, with 54 mini-recitals given by cellists from all over the world published on www.festivalenescu.ro and submitted to the Jury’s analysis, following an Opening Gala Concert held on August 29, with the Romanian Athenaeum empty, but with larger online audiences than in previous editions.
The Cello Round will run until September 3, date until which the public has free access to the submitted recordings on the Festival’s website, and the Jury will evaluate the competitors’ performances. The results will be announced on September 4, at 5:00 PM GMT | 8:00 PM EEST (Romania), on www.festivalenescu.ro. Only 12 of the 54 competitors will advance into the Second Round. The youngest competitor is 14 years old, and the oldest is 31.
To create a bond between musicians and spectators, the platform provides three buttons through which viewers can virtually applaud, choosing the intensity and form of their praise. Spectators can also send messages to young musicians to encourage them. The public’s reaction to these mini-recitals will be communicated to both competitors and juries and will be also made public. Music lovers can share their favorite videos on their own social media channels.
The 2020 George Enescu International Competition opened with a record audience for the Competition’s online live streams so far: 3,027 spectators watched the Opening Gala Concert on www.festivalenescu.ro, on Saturday, August 29, 2020. To this audience are added the music lovers who watched the concert broadcast live on TVR channels, on Radio Romania Musical and other platforms. In comparison, the Romanian Athenaeum Hall could have accommodated about 700 spectators, and in 2018 only 1,656 online viewers watched the Opening Gala Concert.
However, the absence of audience in the concert hall was a presence in itself at this Opening Concert, unique to the Enescu Competition, as pointed out by composer Dan Dediu, whose Triple Concerto, Brahmsodia, received its world première on the opening night:
“I got goosebumps at the end of each piece in the program. The immediate validation of the interpretive act given by the roar of applause is something that cannot be replaced by anything. It’s not that there was no public in the hall. The audience was everywhere and viewed the concert in its smallest details. I witnessed the transfigured faces of my fellow musicians in the orchestra, when they were not playing, but watching the soloists. They were there, body and soul with them. The rallying of the orchestra, the conductor, and the soloists was exemplary, and I was impressed. But what impressed me most was this form of heroism through which they assumed, after so much work and effort, the silence of the hall as the zenith of the artistic act. The moment when the musicians take a bow in front of the empty hall has something of the humility of the monks in the desert, who reach the most profound spiritual experience without beating the drum, but grow and increase sacredly within their self. Someone said that in our time heroism was dead. Yesterday’s concert proved that our heroic resources are intact. It was a performance wherein music showed what it means to life – a battle for dignity, friendship, and communion. As for my work, I think it was played with great dedication, musicality, and aesthetic tension by all participants. I’m happy and thank them,” Dan Dediu declared to the press.
The Triple Concerto, composed by Dan Dediu especially for the 2020 Enescu Competition, was performed by three laureates from previous editions: Gyehee Kim (violin, 2016), Valentin Radutiu (cello, 2011) and Victoria Vassilenko (piano, 2016) accompanied by the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Josep Caballé Domenech. Another première in the opening program was the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra by Alexandru Stefan Murariu – the First-Prize Winner in 2018 George Enescu International Competition, Composition Section.
The Opening Gala Concert is available on the Enescu Festival’s Youtube account, and for the next 30 days it may be also seen on the Raiffeisen Art Proiect # StagiuneVirtuală platform (https://art.raiffeisen.ro/).
Access to the 2020 Enescu Competition online content during this period is free. The full program is at this link: https://www.festivalenescu.ro/program/. Enescu Competition Catalog can be consulted here: https://www.festivalenescu.ro/concurs/catalogul-oficial/#pagina_1.
George Enescu Competition is an international platform for launching the future world-class musicians and to promote the works of the great Romanian composer to the new generation of artists. It is thus a natural extension of the George Enescu Festival, the most important cultural event organized in Romania.
More about this edition of the Competition:
- The 2020 George Enescu Competition invites Romanian society to respond to the #SaveBeautyInLife Challenge
- A Manifesto of Social and Personal Responsibility: It Is up To Us To Choose What We Lose and What We Save During the Pandemic
- Embrace Life and Beauty | 2020 George Enescu International Competition Clip
