Over 20.000 unique viewers for the first concert broadcasted on the Festival’s website
The opening concert of the Enescu Festival Online , Verdi’s Requiem, performed by the Orchestra and Choir of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, set an audience record of 20.079 unique viewers during the four days of broadcast on www.festivalenescu.ro/en/. Out of these, 11.460 unique viewers accessed the concert in the first 24 hours.
George Enescu International Festival and Competition is the only classical music festival that offers free access to its archive, as it receives permission from the artists.
The Enescu Festival Online continues between March 22 and 25 with another concert performed by the Orchestra and Choir of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, under the baton of Fabio Luisi, this time with Sergei Krylov as soloist. The programme presents two musical moments of great virtuosity. Paganini’s First Violin Concerto highlights both the soloist’s playing technique and his ability to express the score’s rich dynamic. George Enescu’s Third Symphony, written between 1916 and 1918, is an extensive vocal-symphonic work, in which the dialogue between orchestra and choir conveys the emotional burden of the times in the First World War context. The concert took place in the most recent edition of George Enescu Festival (September 2019).
The online series of the George Enescu International Festival started on March, 18, 2020, on www.festivalenescu.ro/en, to offer people from all over the world free access to quality classical music. The Enescu Festival contributes this way to uplifting the human spirit in its battle against COVID-19, following in the footsteps of the great composer George Enescu who took part in helping the wounded in the First World War, through the healing power of music.
The Festival debuted with the two concerts of the Orchestra and Choir Maggio Musicale Fiorentino from the 2019 edition, in order to pay tribute to Italy and her people.
The Enescu Festival urges its audience to observe the mandatory social distancing rules and to donate to credible non-governmental organizations, which raise money to supply hospitals with the necessary equipment and materials to resist the virus.
THE FIRST MONTH OF THE GEORGE ENESCU FESTIVAL ONLINE
22-25 March: Orchestra and Choir of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, under the baton of Fabio Luisi, with Sergei Krylov as soloist.
Programme: Niccolò Paganini – Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6; George Enescu – Symphony No. 3 in C major Op. 21.
26-29 March: Polish National Radio Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Foster, with Szymon Nehring (laureate of Arthur Rubinstein International Master Piano Competition in 2017) as soloist.
Programme: Adrian Pop – “Solstice” for orchestra; Frédéric Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11; Witold Lutosławski – Concerto for orchestra.
30 March-2 April: Orchestre National de France, conducted by Ion Marin, with Alexandra Dariescu as soloist.
Programme: George Enescu – Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, Op. 9; Maurice Ravel – Piano Concerto in G major; Claude Debussy – Images pour orchestre.
3-6 April: Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, conducted by Tiberiu Soare. The internationally renowned soloists are soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and pianist Denis Kozhukhin.
Programme: Witold Lutosławski – Paganini Variations for piano and orchestra; Sergei Rachmaninoff – Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini; Francis Poulenc – La Voix Humaine, opera for soprano and orchestra.
7-10 April: Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, conducted by Gergely Madaras, with Renaud Capuçon as soloist.
Programme: George Enescu – Orchestral Suite No. 2 in C major, Op. 20; Béla Bartók – Violin Concerto No. 2; Sergei Prokofiev – Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major.
11-14 April: Peter Grimes, opera written by Benjamin Britten. Performed by the Romanian National Radio Orchestra and Romanian Radio Academic Choir, conducted by Paul Daniel, Ciprian Țuțu, conductor of the choir and Carmen Lidia Vidu, multimedia director. The soloists are tenor Ian Storey as Peter Grimes, soprano Lise Davidsen as Ellen Orford, contralto Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Auntie, baritone Christopher Purves as Balstrode, mezzosoprano Diana Montague as Mrs. Sedley, bass Joshua Bloom as Swallow, baritone Huw Montague Rendall as Ned Keene, tenor Michael Colvin as Bob Boles, tenor Bonaventura Bottone as Reverend Horace Adams, bass Barnaby Rea as Hobson, sopranos Solomia Lukyanets and Rhian Lois as The Two Nieces.
15-18 April: St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Romanian Radio Academic Radio, with Vadim Repin as soloist, conducted by Christian Badea, conductor of the choir Ciprian Țuțu.
Programme: George Enescu – Symphonic Poem “Isis”, finished postum by Pascal Bentoiu; Dmitri Shostakovich – Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor; Antonin Dvořák – Symphony No. 9 in E minor “New World Symphony”
19-22 April: Violinist Midori and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in recital.
Programme:
Robert Schumann – Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor; Gabriel Fauré – Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major; Claude Debussy – Violin Sonata in G minor; George Enescu – Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor “dans le caractère populaire roumain”
Additional Press Info:
Oana Marinescu | +4 0741 278 737 | [email protected]
