Conductor Liviu Ofițeru will take the podium on Tuesday, November 4^th 2025, for the concert "The Choristers", presented by the Romanian Radio Boys Choir on the stage of the Radio Hall. The program is built around selections from the soundtrack of the French feature film "Les Choristes" (2004), directed by Christophe Barratier. In addition, the audience will enjoy a variety of works from the international and Romanian repertoire by composers such as Antonio Vivaldi, Karl Jenkins, Felicia Donceanu, and Gavriil Musicescu, among others.

How would you summarize the activity of the Romanian Radio Boys Choir in its almost four years of existence?

It's important to explain that our ensemble originated from a group of boys within the Radio Children's Choir, founded by Magdalena Faur after the pandemic, in 2022, as a pilot program. Bogdan Dinu and Andrei Milcov were key figures in shaping that first group of boys from the Children's Choir.

In the 2024 season, the ensemble was reorganized, and I became its conductor, marking the moment when it separated from the Children's Choir and officially became the Radio Boys Choir. We've already completed one concert season at the Radio Hall. We opened last season with Benjamin Britten's "A Ceremony of Carols", performed, for the first time in Romania, by a boys' choir. Another major event was the concert "Gospel, Jazz & More", which concluded our season in June.

How would you describe the significance of a boys' choir within the Romanian musical landscape?

As far as I know, this is the only boys' choir in Romania. In countries with a long choral tradition, there are many such ensembles, but Romania has not had this tradition, which gives our choir its unique character. I won't hide the fact that building this structure was difficult, but we managed to complete one season, and now we're opening our second season on the stage of the Radio Hall.

Our projects are diverse, and our repertoire spans a wide range of styles. We've performed Baroque music, for example, in a concert alongside the Baroque Orchestra of the National University of Music Bucharest, under Adrian Buciu, where we sang an excerpt from Bach's Christmas Oratorio. At the same time, alongside "A Ceremony of Carols", we perform contemporary music by Romanian composers, so we maintain a strong national identity. That's why Tuesday evening's program will also include two patriotic pieces.

The concert will also feature sacred music: "Ave Maria" in both the Vavilov-Caccini version and a much older one, over 500 years old, titled Agni Parthene, a hymn by Saint Nectarios, which we sing in Greek. We'll also perform "Bogoroditse Devo" sung in Slavonic. This is the religious component of the concert.

I would also like to mention those who will perform on stage alongside the Radio Boys Choir: Magdalena Faur will accompany them on piano, organ, and keyboards, and our special guest of the evening will be percussionist Lucian Maxim. Also joining us are the oboist Raul Obancia and the flautist Angel Cristian Stancu. The concert will be hosted by Irina Cristina Vasilescu.

However, let's talk a bit about the concert title first: "The Choristers." This project was inspired by Christophe Barratier's film "Les Choristes" (with music by Bruno Coulais), a French production nominated for both the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Awards, a production which achieved international acclaim. The film created a true cultural phenomenon in France and other French-speaking countries, a revival of the choral movement, which at the time was in decline, and it ultimately became a great success. Drawing from the film's story, we decided to bring to the stage of the Radio Hall a selection from its soundtrack.

The concert will open with "Vois sur ton chemin", which roughly translates to "Take Care of Your Path." The film is set in the aftermath of World War II, in a boarding school for troubled boys, depicting the bleak lives of children at the time. Europe bore deep scars from the war, such as hunger and poverty, and life in such an institution could not have been easy. A music teacher, himself unemployed, accepts a position there and creates a choir, offering the boys a means of escape from their harsh reality governed by strict rules. It becomes an escape into beauty and hope. The opening song, "Vois sur ton chemin", reminds us to take care of our path and stay true to our goals. The next piece, "Cerf-volant", conveys another metaphor: to rise proudly like a kite soaring into the sky, a symbol of our personal struggle to become better, to reach higher in our aspirations.

In the second part of the concert, we will present Vivaldi's "Gloria", as well as a piece from a future project with music by Karl Jenkins, namely "Adiemus". We've also included two traditional African songs, which will be part of our upcoming project "Tribal."

Our rehearsals often include creative workshops in choral singing, percussion, theatre, and dance, since, on stage, the children not only sing but also move and dance, as they did in last season's closing concert. We'll also revisit a few songs from our gospel concert, to end the evening with joy and energy.

We look forward to welcoming you with great joy on Tuesday, November 4^th 2025, at the Radio Hall!