The series of events at the Sala Radio dedicated to the Christmas holidays continues on Thursday, December 14th, with a concert by the Radio Academic Choir. On this occasion Ciprian Țutu, conductor of the Academic Radio Choir, gives us more details:

Mr. Ciprian Țutu, we are in the most beautiful time of the year, we are approaching the feast of the Nativity, and on this occasion the Academic Radio Choir will perform on Thursday, December 14th, the traditional Christmas concert. It will be about "the excitement of Christmas in the past, spent among loved ones", as you mentioned in your press release. How will you describe this celebration musically?

It's a much-anticipated event in any season in which the Academic Radio Choir performs. We are even happy that this concert is sold out. This time, we invited our colleagues from the Radio Tormbones to participate. They are members of the National Radio Orchestra. Together we will join forces in a concert that is close to my heart. I'll even explain why this concert is so special to me. It's primarily about the trombone, the instrument of my childhood, the instrument I studied in middle school and high school. As fate would have it, my musical development took a different direction, and when I finished high school I turned to another specialization, choral conducting, and here I am today, the conductor of this ensemble. I really enjoy working in this area, choral music, but the trombone has remained close to my heart.

For a long time I have been dreaming and dreaming of such a concert in which I could make a musical partnership with equal and beautifully coloured forces with this instrument very close to the human voice, and here is the right moment, the perfect moment. But, once again, two of our choir members, who will also perform as soprano soloists in the evening concert - Cecilia Bucerzan and Anastasia Türköz - are the life partners of two of the trombone quartet members, and I thought that this juxtaposition in which we will challenge them (the artistic one, on stage) is just a natural continuation of the ordinary life of these wonderful families of musicians. So here is a more unusual, non-conformist aspect of bringing this special formula together on stage.

Returning to the evening's programme, we have thought of a one-part concert, in a natural evolution from old archaic Romanian carols, secular or traditional... For the first time, there will be two Christmas choral suites. One belongs to the young composer from Bucharest Andrei Petrache, and the other to the composer from Brasov Dan Pavelescu. We will also have a number of arrangements and pieces from the international repertoire that we have chosen together with our guests. The most special moment of the evening will be a musical duel of a choral group spearheaded by Cecilia Bucerzan in rivalry with an instrumental group, the trombone quartet, spearheaded by soprano Anastasia Türköz. It is an arrangement by Daryl Runswick and adapted for the evening concert by Florian Radu. I think it will be a very colourful programme and we can't wait to present it to our audience.

And this time you will find both the choral vocal group and names of our young colleagues. Besides Cecilia Bucerzan and Anastasia Türköz, I mention Valentina Verlan - soprano, Ciprian Mardare - tenor, Teodor Vădana - baritone. On percussion Liviu Ofițeru and Ștefan Voicu will be playing and our pianist Carmen Săndulescu will be there to support us.

On December 21st, three of the Radio bands - the Radio Big Band, the Radio Academic Choir and the Radio Children's Choir will join forces for a series of Romanian carols and international Christmas songs performed in a musical arrangement by Simona Strungaru. How do you see this collaboration between the institution's bands?

It is also a joy. First of all, from the inside we have a variety, a richness of repertoire that we can approach and here, as I have proposed collaborations between various bands or instrumental formulas with our choir, as it happens on the 14th... it is a first for me, because although we have had attempts, they were not completed. Here, this time, we finally have a concert with the Radio Big Band. We are very happy to have been invited by the Big Band to be present with them on the evening of the concert on December 21st.