Violinist and musicologist Ștefana Țițeica, a close friend of the late Adriana Bera (who passed away in March 2025), discusses the 2025 edition of the "Mozart" Festival, which took place in Cluj-Napoca between 21-27 November 2025.

The 2025 edition of the "Mozart" Festival is dedicated to the memory of Adriana Bera-pianist, professor, and musicologist, a personality deeply connected to the history of this festival. How would you describe her contribution to shaping the festival over the years, and how do you plan to honor her memory in this year's edition?

Adriana Bera took up the torch of this festival from its founder, Francisc László, her mentor, and carried its development further. An important aspect of her contribution, in my view, is the festival's orientation toward youth - both toward young musicians and toward young music lovers. Adriana Bera introduced, for the first time, a family concert in the Mozart Festival's program. The festival we are dedicating to her memory continues this tradition with several premieres: the family concert is now also presented in Hungarian, concerts have been added for primary school classes in both Romanian and Hungarian, and for the first time there is also a masterclass for the students of the "Sigismund Toduță" Music High School. The chamber concerts are presented in a new format designed to appeal to young listeners or those who are new to this kind of music. The concerts last 75 minutes without an intermission, and the programs combine purely musical communication with verbal - and even visual - elements. This is the case, for example, in the concert on November 25th, where the moderation will be taken over by the character of Antonio Salieri, Mozart's great rival, long rumored to have poisoned him out of envy.

Entitled "Mozart Forever," this year's edition is a collective effort by numerous musicians, both from Cluj and from major European musical centers such as Salzburg, Vienna, Munich, and Nuremberg. I would like to ask you to tell us how the organization process for this edition unfolded and how the efforts of these musicians come together in the events you are presenting in Cluj-Napoca?

One of Adriana Bera's greatest regrets, which she shared with her close friends last autumn, was that in 2025 the "Mozart" Festival would not take place - for the first time since 1991. Starting in April, the idea of organizing this edition in her memory, with love instead of a budget, began to take shape. A meeting in Salzburg at the beginning of May between myself and Robert Levin - the renowned pianist and musicologist, a decades-long friend of the Cluj festival, honorary member of the Romanian Mozart Society, and doctor honoris causa of the "Gheorghe Dima" Academy, as well as a close friend of Adriana Bera, through whom I first met him - became the starting point of this festival. From that meeting onward, Robert Levin and I called Aurelia Vișovan - Adriana Bera's former student, who was also her advisor for her doctoral thesis and who is now a professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Nuremberg. This is how we began to set the festival dates concretely, and things started to fall into place. Adriana Bera's former students, especially those from Cluj, as well as Aurelia Vișovan, began to get involved in the festival's programs. Raluca Rad took over the organization of the "Mozart and Salieri" program, and I contacted and then met Cordelia Höfer, a longtime friend of Adriana Bera and of the "Mozart" Festival. And so, work on this edition has been carried out in Salzburg, Nuremberg, Cluj-Napoca, and Vienna - where cellist Ion Storojenco …The contribution - especially that of the young musicians from Cluj - is significant, and I should mention that more than 30 musicians from all generations will be performing on the stages of these concerts.

An event that I believe is of truly special importance is the lecture by musicologist Ioana Geantă, dedicated to the new edition of the famous Köchel Catalogue (KV), organized through the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg. What information will attendees be able to learn?

Ms. Geantă collaborated for many years as a musicologist at the Mozarteum Foundation on the development of this new catalogue. The new KV is considered the modern continuation of the classification of Mozart's musical works, originally initiated by Köchel in 1862. It is based on the latest results of international research on Mozart. In its main section, it contains new information on over 90 works, starting from Köchel Verzeichnis 627, mainly fragments and lost compositions by Mozart that were missing from previous editions or only briefly mentioned. The new catalogue also provides, in its restructured appendices, a comprehensive overview of Mozart's adaptations of foreign works, his own and others' cadenzas, as well as studies of pedagogical materials and all other musical recordings. This volume has 1,392 pages and weighs nearly 3 kg, and it can also be consulted online thanks to the generosity of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg. The proposal to delegate Mrs. Geantă to Cluj came from the director of the Scientific Department of the Mozarteum Foundation, whom I met in Salzburg, and we are very happy to welcome Ioana Geantă to Cluj.

This year, the festival's agenda includes a series of masterclasses led by professors from Europe and America. Could you also tell us about these masterclasses, which are offered free of charge to young musicians?

Robert Levin is renowned for his masterclasses, some of which, held at the famous Juilliard School in New York, can be viewed online. For the students from Cluj, it is a unique opportunity to perform for Robert Levin and receive guidance from a leading authority in classical music performance. The classes are also engaging for auditors. Although I am not a pianist, I attended several of Robert Levin's masterclasses in Salzburg together with Adriana Bera. In fact, Robert Levin has also held masterclasses as part of the Cluj festival. His wife, Taiwanese-born pianist Ya-Fei Chuang, a professor at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, will lead a masterclass for pianists dedicated to the Romantic repertoire, while Cordelia Höfer will conduct a chamber music masterclass. A premiere this year is the masterclass for students of the "Sigismund Toduță" Music High School, led by Aurelia Vișovan. This class had already been planned by Adriana Bera for the day after she was supposed to leave the hospital, and Aurelia continued it as planned. The theme of this masterclass will be the ornamentation of passages in Mozart's piano works.