Luiza Zan will perform soon as part of the jazz season at the Athenaeum, followed by an appearance at the London Jazz Festival. She has also recently released a music video. We'll hear more about all of this directly from Luiza, who is joining us now on the line. Welcome back to Radio România Muzical.

It's great to be back. Thank you so much for inviting me onto the show.

You have a concert coming up at the Athenaeum; I understand it's already sold out. What can you tell those who didn't manage to get tickets about your concert with Flavius Duma on the piano?

I can tell them that we will be performing Stephen Sondheim; most people raise their eyebrows whenever I say this name, since not many things are known about this musical theatre composer. He's better known in the theatre world rather than the music world. Stephen Sondheim wrote a lot of psychological musicals, as he had a passion for unusual subject matter. I'll be presenting a chronological overview of these musical theater works, as they're part of my doctorate research, the second one I'm attempting to get. I can promise those who will be attending in person that it will be more than a concert, because I'm planning on adding some of the storylines that I'll be singing about in a sort of play, meaning that it won't be just a music performance, it'll have a sprinkle of theatre. We had a full house for the show at the International Theatre Festival in Arad and now we're bringing it to the Atheneum; we'll see where else this project will take us. This project is very important for me, but it also applies to Flavius. Flavius Duma has more projects going on right now, like Duo Dumas, which has won awards. He keeps performing in all sorts of ensembles in Bucharest and has studied under mentors like Toma Dimitriu and, currently, Sorin Zlat. He is an extraordinary stage collaborator, especially when it comes to gospel music; he has extensive experience in the genre, which I truly appreciate. We also performed together this summer at a few festivals; he reads music very well, which is important for the Sondheim project as it's all fully notated in a score, so it's less "jazz" than people might perhaps expect.

You'll be going to London shortly for the jazz festival happening there, one of the most important festivals in the world of this field, in a new, all-female ensemble.

I will be performing with the Muse Quartet in London. We've previously sang together at the Atheneum in the jazz season organised by UCIMR. Collaborating with the Muse Quartet has been wonderful. I must say, there's a different energy once performing in an all-female ensemble, and the absence of it has been felt. We will be performing classic jazz and some Romanian songs as well, including my new song Doina îngerului (The Angel's Doina). I hope we can leave the crowd pleasantly surprised by us doing so. I must say that this concert will be held at a very new, very posh location, the Embassy Gardens in London, with the support of ICR London and the Win Gallery.

In regards to the music video for the song Doina îngerului (The Angel's Doina), off the Aer (Air) album, released basically last week. Please tell us the story behind this video. Three of you worked on it.

There are three people who have worked on the video, not counting the help we've had from someone we haven't previously credited elsewhere; we wouldn't have been able to succed without the help of Lehel Vytalios, Ancsa's husband, Ancsa being the extraordinary photographer behind the video. Andrei Bouariu is the protagonist of the dance sequence and the coreography seen in the video. I met Andrei thanks to Radu Afrim, back when we worked together on the show Gro(o)ve; I enjoyed his dance skills in the show so much that it made me believe that a man would be the vest fit for the role of the angel, even though I'm the one to dawn on the wings in the video. There are so many subliminal messages there that I want the world to discover, so I won't discuss them further, since you can't tell the story of a dance the same way you can't dance about architecture. I really love the location we picked as well, also thanks to Ferencz Ancsa. I'm talking aboutb Harghita Băi. I don't want to discuss the exact location either, as public access to it is prohibited.