National Radio Orchestra - live broadcast
Friday, 8 April 2011 , 19.00

After the second half of April, Romania will make herself heard in Europe: Denmark, Great Britain, Catalonia, the Czech Republic, and Lapland - the entire world will hear how our country sounds like. They will learn about Romania and its so unfairly neglected great value: the spirituality. Romania is one of the European countries where churches are not crowded, but literally packed, where a religious holiday may as well be a civic one, where the religious calendar is a spiritual, social, civil as well as onomastic landmark.

The Byzantine roots of the Romanian spirituality can be easily noticed in religious music. How many of us don't go to a certain church because there they 'sing psalms at the lectern and have a male vocal group' or because 'that's where they really sing!'

So much has been said about Gershwin and the innovations he brought into music - how he merged jazz with classical music, a new genre being born, a genre that is so enchanting that you wonder how we could have lived without it. Paul Constantinescu inserted the psaltic Byzantine chants into the structures of the classical music which resulted in innovation of thrilling beauty.

When I listened to his Christmas Oratory at the Romanian Athenaeum this winter, I thought it was so unfair that Paul Constantinescu is not very often present among distinguished artists on the greatest stages of the world. But this may change also thanks to the Easter Celebrations Project of the Radio European Union which includes Romania. The work is Paul Constantinescu´s Easter Byzantine Oratory 'The Passions and Resurrection of Christ' performed by the National Radio Orchestra and Choir conducted by Horia Andreescu on April 8^th, a recording to be sent to the European public radio broadcasting companies on April 17^th 2011.

We invite you to listen to this event concert at the 'Mihail Jora' Concert Hall or live on Radio Romania Music starting 19:00!