Conductor Cristian Mandeal returns to the Radio Hall on Wednesday, December 13th, at 19.00, at the stand ofNational Radio Orchestra. The evening program will include, in the first part, the Concerto in A Minor for piano and orchestra, op. 16, by E. Grieg, having as guest soloist pianist Horia Mihail. In the second part, the National Radio Orchestra will perform Symphony no. 39 in E flat major by Mozart.

With hundreds of concerts conducted in more than 35 countries on 4 continents, Cristian Mandeal has won an excellent national and international reputation, both because of his musical performances and also because of his recent involvement in the evolution of the Romanian Youth Orchestra, which he succeeded to turn it into a genuine national brand.

Concert soloist of Radio Orchestras and Choirs, Horia Mihail is one of the best rated Romanian pianists today. He is well known to the Romanian public in recent years as a protagonist of the Travelling Piano tour, but also as a participant in the Enchanted Flute, the Duel of Violins or George Enescu's Violin tours.

The concert can be listened live on all Radio Romania Cultural and Radio Romania Muzical frequencies in the country and streaming live on the Internet, at www.radioromaniacultural.ro and www.romania-muzical.ro.

Starting with the new season, the tickets and subscriptions for the Radio Orchestras and Choirs events will be purchased online through the www.bilete.ro network. These can also be purchased at the Radio Hall's ticket office and are also available at the Romanian Post Offices signaling Bilete.ro and in the Germanos and Inmedio stores, signaling Bilete.ro.

For more information on Radio Orchestras and Choirs, please visit www.orchestreradio.ro.

Biographies

Cristian Mandeal

In 45 years of uninterrupted conducting activity, Cristian Mandeal practiced his profession both abroad and especially in Romania. He studied at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory for 10 years (1965 - 1975) principal piano, conducting (Constantin Bugeanu) and composition (Ştefan Niculescu). He later completed his studies in Berlin (Herbert von Karajan, 1980) and Munich (Sergiu Celibidache, 1990). He started as a collaborator pianist at the Romanian Opera Bucharest (1974-1977), then becoming the conductor of the Philharmonics in Târgu Mureş (1977 - 1980), Cluj (1980 - 1987) and Bucharest (1987 - 2009).

He was the Artistic Director of the George Enescu International Festival and Contest, edition 2001 and 2003.

As Principal Conductor and General Manager of the George Enescu Philharmonic (1991 - 2009), he raised it to very high levels, leaving behind a model institution for Romania. During this time, the Romanian Athenaeum building was restored and modernized (1991 - 2003). Complex infrastructure and orchestrations features were made from own revenues. The repertoire was constantly enriched and renewed.

The artistic staff enjoyed national and international respect and recognition, benefiting for four years from a special salary law. More than 30 tournaments took place, both in Europe and Asia. A relevant discography was launched on CD and DVD, including complete Enescu and Brahms operas. There has been a series of national and international event concerts and a constant participation in all Enescu Festival editions, both through the involvement of all the musical ensembles of the institution, as well as by the individual participation of the leading artists. The Chamber Orchestra of the Philharmonic, the elite band selected from the symphonic orchestra, with its own stages, tours and recordings, was re-established.

Abroad, Cristian Mandeal has conducted hundreds of concerts as guest of dozens of orchestras on 4 continents, in 35 countries and 31 capitals. He has participated in many prestigious international festivals in the company of the most renowned soloists of the contemporary world. He was Artistic Director of the Northern Israeli Orchestra - Haifa (1999-2002) and Basque National Orchestra - San Sebastian (2001-2008), Permanent Conductor at Haydn Orchestra in Bolzano and Trento (2000-2003); he was the lead guest conductor of the Halle Manchester Orchestra (2003-2008), the first holder of this title for the entire 150-year existence of this orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic (2006 - 2013) and the Belgrade Philharmonic (2006-2007 season).

Cristian Mandeal has directed over 60 absolute auditions, especially Romanian composers but also foreign, some of them being dedicated to him. He is a relentless promoter of George Enescu, programming his music across all meridians. He directed the opera Oedipus in the first British audition (Edinburgh Festival in 2002) and Italian (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in 2005). Since 2008 he is the President of the George Enescu Society in London.

He performed hundreds of minutes of radio recordings and recorded on LPs, CDs and DVDs for Electrecord, BMG Ariola, AIX Record (USA), Claves, Bis and Nimbus. He has produced 3 anniversary CDs of the George Enescu Philharmonic at 125, 135 and 140 years. He is member, but also president in the juries of international conducting competitions.

Cristian Mandeal has received numerous Romanian and foreign awards and honours. He is a honorary citizen of the city of Brasov and Doctor Honoris Causa of the Academy in Cluj. A point of great interest in the latest period of Cristian Mandeal's activity is the collaboration with the Romanian Youth Orchestra, which he has been constantly cultivating, educating and conducting since 2008, raising it in this short period to a level of authentic national brand, with numerous and prestigious participations in the major concert halls and festivals in Romania and in Europe, plus its own discography.

Horia Mihail

The pianist Horia Mihail had his debut in his hometown of Brasov, performing the Concerto in D major by J. Haydn at the age of 10. Since then, he has concerted over 1,000 times with the majority of Romanian symphonic orchestras, including George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest and the National Radio Orchestra. "The rhythmic subtlety and the articulation of the atmosphere and the sound color were of a kind that this music (Prokofiev) very rarely receives," Boston Globe wrote, after one of his appearances.

After 14 years of studies in Romania with prof. Stela Dragulin, in Brasov, and Prof. Constantin Ionescu-Vovu, at the Music Academy in Bucharest, Mihail attended the courses at the University of Illinois, where he studied with Ian Hobson, obtaining graduation diplomas and Masters in 1995, after a period of three years. After three years as a lecturer at Boston University, Horia Mihail returned to Braşov in autumn 2002 as a soloist of the Philharmonic and a member of the already-known Romanian Piano Trio, alongside the violinist Alexandru Tomescu and celist Razvan Suma with whom he has performed concerts of great success in the country and abroad. Together with Romanian Piano Trio he made five national tours under the title Music ON and together with the violinist Alexandru Tomescu he was the protagonist of three Stradivarius tours. Following these collaborations three trio CDs with works by Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn and 3 Stradivarius CDs appeared in duo with Alexandru Tomescu: Encore, Virtuoso and Romantic.

In April 2011, the artist held a national tour of solo recitals with a full Franz Liszt programe entitled Travelling Piano - In the footsteps of Franz Liszt, which was then transformed into a live CD released at Casa Radio Publishing House, a project that the artist continued with a second tour of nearly two months in the summer of 2012 and a third tour in 2013, which was mirrored by a Beethoven studio CD recorded at the Radio Hall. In 2013, Horia Mihail launched the first solo CD with the National Radio Orchestra, with concerts by Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Lutoslawski, and in 2015 the solo Romantic album at the same Radio House Publishing House.

Outside of the scenes in Romania, the musician performed recitals and concerts in Berlin, Prague, Munich, Paris, Lisbon, London, in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova, Argentina, Chile, United States, China, Malaysia or Japan.

In recent years, Horia Mihail has participated in festivals such as the Varna Summer International Music Festival, the Bucharest Music Film Festival, the George Enescu International Festival, the International Piano Nights Festival in Chisinau, the Ushuaia International Festival. The Duel of Violins Project - Stradivarius versus Guarneri brought together the violinists Liviu Prunaru and Gabriel Croitoru each year starting in 2011 and the Three Divas project with the famous singers Ruxandra Donose, Teodora Gheorghiu and Leontina Văduva in Iaşi, Cluj and Timişoara in 2011 .

The projects in which the artist continued to be involved each year, among other solo and chamber projects, are the Travelling Piano (www.pianulcalator.ro), the Duel of the Violins, alongside Liviu Prunaru and Gabriel Croitoru (www.duelulviorilor.ro ), The Golden Flute / Enchanted Flute (www.flautuldeaur.ro), together with the flutist Ion Bogdan Ştefănescu and The Violin of George Enescu In the Villages (www.vioaraluienescu.ro), together with Gabriel Croitoru. (Biographies taken over)