How important is for you the existence of a festival of this kind on the Romanian musical stage?

Because in the Romanian musical world, musical chamber festivals are almost a rarity, this festival, in this context, comes as a breath of fresh air for us, Romanian chamber musicians. Of course, we attend different important festivals which take place abroad - in the Netherlands, Germany and France - but it is always a pleasure to attend a musical chamber festival in Romania.

The recitals will take place in the Aula of the Mihai Eminescu Central University Library. Why is this hall suitable for the acoustic sonority of a quartet?

Because, for a quartet, the hall is known as 'a fifth instrument', which can help us, or not, achieve what we intended. It is an extraordinary thing to play in this hall which, in reduced parameters, somehow imitates the Romanian Athenaeum Hall: it is a round hall, with a dome, where the sound can reverberate beautifully. Furthermore, the size of the hall is perfect for chamber music. As we all know, chamber music was in fact composed for a few instruments, hence, the volume measured in hertz cannot be so high, and thus, we need a proper hall for this purpose.

What will the musical programme of your performance be?

As you well know, the Ad Libitum Quartet is the state quartet of the Iași Philharmonic Orchestra and it is implicitly understood that our participation there was a must. Of course, the invitation to participate, together with other quartets, at this event is very nice and we feel very good to be surrounded by our colleagues with whom we will perform during these three days. The musical programme that we have chosen for this event is a very well known one, which perfectly fits this festival, because people want to listen to beautiful famous musical pieces. We will perform the Quartet in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and then a less-known musical piece composed by Anton Webern, entitled Langsammersatz, and after the intermission we will play the Quartet Death and the Maiden by Franz Schubert.

What comes next for the Ad Libitum Quartet, after the participation in the Iași Festival?

What I can tell you is that, in fact, this participation in the Iași Festival is preceded by two other performances, only two days before, in Timișoara, where we will perform the same musical programme on the stage of the Philharmonic Orchestra. On the day before our performance in Iași, we will play the Quartet Death and the Maiden by Franz Schubert, together with Schubert's Quintet for Two Cellos in Cluj, in another chamber music festival, called the Decameron Festival.