Sorina Rotaru and her ensemble's members are the protagonists of the first concert in 2026 of the Jazz Season at the Romanian Athenaeum. The event will take place today at the Small Room, starting with 7 PM. The soloist Sorina Rotaru herself gives us more details in an interview conducted by Viorel Grecu.

Sorina, this evening you are performing at the athenaeum. What does this mean for you? How do you feel in the wake of this event?

It's a very important concert, especially because it is the first concert of 2026 and the first concert to take place at the athenaeum. I don't have words for how happy I am, I'm excited and grateful all at once.

Tell us a bit more about the people who will perform with you, the members of the band or the ensemble, however it's called.

There are two musicians that I absolutely love to share the stage with. I'm talking about the pianist Alexandru Olteanu and the contrabas Adrian Flautistu. They are musicians who I've been performing with since the beginning, at least Alexandru Olteanu. He is an extraordinary pianist, with a special sensitivity and empathy, with a creativity that he uses beautifully in music and which inspires both us and the audience. And Adrian Flautistu is one of the most appreciated and booked contrabass jazz musicians from Romania, with an overflowing energy and scary good technique, one might say, and an extraordinary soloist.

From what we've seen, you have celebrated 10 years of collaboration with Alexandru Olteanu.

Yes, on December 28th. 10 years ago was the debut concert and I had an intense activity with Alexandru both in performance, but also a collaboration in which we compose original songs.

Since you mentioned the songs, let's talk a bit about your repertoire for this evening at the Athenaeum. What will you be performing?

The repertoire is extensive and will take us through a variety of styles, from the dance language of swing and stride, characteristic of the first decades of the 20th century, to contemporary jazz, expressed through a more colorful language, a more exploration, specific to the modal jazz. The program includes, for the most part, pieces that I fell in love with, discovering the interpretations of great singers, such as Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday. There will also be original compositions. Our compositions are also musical portraits, which, as I said, I created together with Alexandru Olteanu and are inspired by the personalities and life stories of people who have been our muses.

For those who don't know you, give us a short history of your activity up until now.

The main project is Sorina Rootaru Jazz Ensemble and we have performed concerts in the country, there were also a few concerts abroad. Perhaps one of the most important was the one in 2023 at UNESCO and another concert held at the Romanian Embassy in Paris. We have released two albums. The first is called Open Your Wings and contains a selection of songs from the American Songbook, and the second album is called Human Song - Jazz Portraits and is a CD with original compositions with a selection of portraits and some of them will be played this evening.

I want to point out your attraction to this classical repertoire which appeared long before you were born. What determined you to perform songs from the 20s and 30s?

I simply liked it. Ever since I heard this music live for the first time, it happened to be at a jam session in Berlin, I gained such a thirst for knowledge and the more I listened to jazz, the more I was attracted to it and my desire to sing it grew, and the rest is history. I like this stride style very much, that has a lot of swing and dance and effervescence, but I also love more modern music, which is closer to modal jazz, exploring modal coloring.