From March 3^rd to March 8^th, 2025, the first part of the SoNoRo Conac tour will take place, marking its 13th edition this year. More details are provided by violist Răzvan Popovici, the initiator of the project, in a conversation with Ioana Țintea.

Răzvan Popovici, on March 3^rd, a new chapter in the SoNoRo Conac story begins, and in this first part of the tour, you will be performing alongside pianist Cristian Budu. How did this collaboration come about?

I met Cristian at a very special festival in Brazil, Tiradentes, a festival that blends music extremely well with other arts and all kinds of interesting and contemporary elements. We got along very well and played our first concert together there. Since then, over the past few years, we have regularly performed together in various places around the world. I believe I have invited him twice to SoNoRo MusikLand, our festival in Transylvania. This year, he will also come in the fall for the SoNoRo Festival. So, we have built an extraordinary musical friendship. I think it will be a win-win situation for both the audience and us, as friends and musicians.

This year's edition is titled "When the Dust Settles," exploring the influence of folklore in classical music. Can you tell us more about the selected pieces?

The title is special. I am glad we had the courage to name a tour this way. The repertoire we have chosen includes composers from Central Europe. We start with Schubert-Austrian. Then, we move on to Bohemia, to the Czech Republic-Josef Suk. We continue with Hungary-Zoltán Kodály, the great Hungarian composer; then Béla Bartók-both of them, in fact, born in the Transylvanian lands, on these musical hills, as I call them, this highly musical region of Central and Eastern Europe. We also have Dvořák, of course, Waldesruhe-the famous Silent Woods for cello or viola. A very beautiful program!

And the title… it came to me when I was thinking that in all these regions, dust has always played an important role because not all streets were paved. I am sure that when these composers went to the countryside to write in the middle of nature, they waited for the silence of the night, when the dust from the streets, stirred by carriages, horses, and later cars, finally settled, giving them the peace needed to compose these masterpieces… because all the pieces we will play are truly masterpieces.

I hope we will have full halls and that, as every year, through our slightly more profound, more inventive approach, the audience will be with us, will somehow engage, and will discover. I would say the tour looks promising.

As every year, the SoNoRo Conac Tour highlights buildings of historical and architectural significance. What criteria guide the selection of concert venues, and how challenging is it to find and access such locations?

I don't think it's very difficult to access them because once we decide where we want to perform, the people responsible-whether they are castle or manor owners, heritage building custodians, or representatives of city halls, county councils, or museums-are very open, happy and grateful that we bring great music and such artists to these places.

I am delighted that this year we will return to Iași, to the splendid auditorium of the "Mihai Eminescu" Central University Library-a hall with excellent acoustics, a space we have filled with music over SoNoRo's 20 years of activity in Romania. Then, we will continue the tour in Cluj, at Casa Numaa, a beautifully restored building right in the main square of Cluj, which we introduced for the first time last year in the 19th edition of the SoNoRo Festival. Having had a wonderful experience, we wanted to honor this restoration project again this year, because the audience knows that SoNoRo Conac does not select venues randomly but regularly honors successful and valuable restoration projects throughout the country. After that, we return to the Synagogue in Bistrița-another venue we have often filled with music over the years. It's a place with splendid acoustics, a magnificent piano, and artworks on the walls. Then, we will arrive for the first time at the Palace of the Princes of Transylvania in Alba Iulia. I am pleased that we found openness at the Alba Iulia City Hall and that we can bring SoNoRo Conac there for the first time. And the final concert of this first SoNoRo Conac adventure will be in Timișoara, in one of my favorite venues-the Main Hall of the National Museum of Art-a building with extraordinary stories… Brahms performed there, Liszt, Sarasate, Joseph Joachim, and many other great musicians. So, performing there is an honor, and in a way, noblesse oblige-one must play beautifully because the history of the place is overwhelming.