The Radio Big Band opens its 2025-2026 season on Thursday, October 9th, at 7:00 p.m., with the concert "The Magic of Wayne Shorter." The event will be broadcast live on Radio România Muzical and Radio România Cultural. In addition to "The Magic of Wayne Shorter," the Radio Big Band has many other surprises in store for the new season. Conductor Simona Strungaru shares more details in an interview with Viorel Grecu.

Why did you decide to open the new season with Wayne Shorter's music - a real challenge for any orchestra, I think, considering that he's an artist who has greatly elevated the art of jazz composition?

That's precisely why we chose to perform his music, in the complex arrangements created by the team at Lincoln Center. Wayne Shorter is a musician who explored so many styles and left behind an extraordinary legacy - both for those who perform jazz and for the listeners that he always serves as a source of inspiration and growth for us as musicians.

Since you mentioned arrangements, we know that Wayne Shorter was mainly a combo musician. Essentially, he wrote for small ensembles. So these are pieces orchestrated by the Lincoln Center. How did you acquire them? Because, as some may not be aware, you can't just perform an arrangement as you want, it's not something you simply download from the internet and that's all.

Exactly, we usually have works written or arranged especially for us, and that's not limited to this concert. Many times, when we prepare new programs, we collaborate with arrangers who write or rewrite pieces for orchestra, starting from material that was not originally intended for a big band. In this case, we acquired the arrangements made by those at Lincoln Center. They performed a concert with Wayne Shorter himself, playing these works, and it's a challenge for us to interpret them in our own way.

Since we're at the start of the new season, what other projects or challenges can we look forward to? I know you are preparing something.

Yes, we're preparing a preliminary performance of the project that we will carry out throughout next year, when we celebrate the centenary of Miles Davis's birth. This will be the central focus of our next concert, on October 23rd. We will start by performing Birth of the Cool.

After that, in November, we're preparing two concerts. The first will feature the music of composer and pianist Romeo Cozma, with orchestrations by his son, Robert Cozma -trombonist, orchestrator, and composer. It will be an anniversary concert dedicated to Romeo Cozma, an important figure in Romanian music.

At the second concert of November, on Thursday the 20th, we have the pleasure of performing the music of Earth, Wind & Fire. Once again, we will be acquiring their orchestrations. It will be, of course, a very energetic concert and an extremely enjoyable experience for everyone.

With vocalists?

No, it will be strictly instrumental. After that, we have two concerts scheduled for December. On December 4th, we will host a special event, as it will mark the debut of the Romanian Youth Jazz Orchestra. This is an initiative we developed together with colleagues from the Radio Big Band and with Sebastian Gheorghiu, aiming to support young musicians who are not only interested in jazz but are also capable performers. They are selected through a prior audition, and this will be the first concert in a series we plan to organize-a kind of handing over or preparation for future collaborations with young musicians in which our goal is to share the knowledge we acquire and possess.

So, this concert will take place on December 4th, and on December 18th, together with the Radio Chamber Orchestra, we will perform another truly special concert - in fact, all of them are special, as we put a great deal of passion into preparing these event-concerts. This will be the Big Band's Christmas Concert, featuring Stefano Di Battista as soloist.