A flautist with an important international career, soloist of the "George Enescu" Philharmonic, professor at the National University of Music in Bucharest, and laureate of numerous national and international competitions, and also a poet, Ion Bogdan Ștefănescu will perform his annual tour, "The Enchanted Flute". About the "Dance and Suspense" edition, held between May 16th and 23rd, 2025, the musician spoke with Ioana Țintea.

Mr. Ion Bogdan Ștefănescu, this year's edition of "The Enchanted Flute" tour has dance in the foreground. How did the idea of creating the entire program around the theme of dance come about?

After last year's tour's success, which we organized under the title Jazzparale, we thought we should somehow prolong the joy of those who came and listened to us back then, and why not our joy of singing this combination of classical, jazz and folk music. This time around, with the programme we propose, "Dance and Suspense", this idea will be enhanced even more with a repertoire that brings together famous dances of multiple genres that we will present. We chose Tchaikovsky from "Swan Lake". We will sing a suite of three dances that I am convinced everyone will recognize. From Handel, a famous piece rearranged in an authentic rock spirit. We will also play music by Richard Galliano, a suite, because he is renowned not only for his appearances as a classical concert musician, but he is also a very famous composer throughout the world. We will play waltz, bossa nova, sertao, all kinds of types of music, especially Latin American. We will also play Irish music. Phil Coulter is a star composer in Ireland and I'm sure this suite of Irish songs will electrify the atmosphere, and also Johnny Răducanu, we will play the piece "Baroque blues", a combination of baroque music, imagined by Johnny Răducanu, of course, on the well-known model of his style in Romanian jazz. Tiberiu Brediceanu is also present with a suite of dances from Moldova. Therefore, it is, in fact, a panorama of dance music, which follows us throughout our entire lives and brings us happiness. That is why I am betting so much on the success of this program.

In this edition, you will be accompanied by the pianist Sorin Petrescu and the percussionist Doru Roman. Why did you choose this formula of flute, piano and percussion for the "Dance and Suspense" show?

Like I was saying, this program is the extension of last year's, which I made in the same combination of flute, piano and percussion, and it is back once more to highlight this timbral combination that has a fantastic force as a result of the arrangements that we propose. It becomes a very orchestral timbral performance, because Doru Roman will be playing many percussion instruments. Sorin Petrescu is an exceptional pianist and is also recognized in our musical world for the arrangements that he makes, and we, in fact, have been playing together for a quarter of a century. This band is actually called Trio Contraste, and under this title, we have performed all over the world, and, of course, it was a very well-known band in the world of contemporary music. I say it was, because we decided, a year ago, to interrupt our activity, but only in the area of ​​contemporary music. But, because a quarter of a century for the collaboration of some musicians means a lifetime, we can't really do without each other, and that's when we found this solution for our collaboration in the form of this tour that I've been organizing for 14 years, and the fact that we have a reason to meet, rehearse, and play together, both last year and this year, can only do us a lot of good and I hope it's the same for the audience.

Tell us about the tour's roadmap. What cities did you choose for this edition?

This year, our tour will debut in Deva on May 16th. Then, on May 17th, we will be at the Caracal National Theatre, and we will arrive at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest on May 19th, at 7 PM. This is kind of a climax for our journey, because we'll be performing at the Romanian Athenaeum. But, of course, right after, on May 20th, we will go to the Cultural Palace in Iași. Again, another place where last year we had an extraordinary success, and they called me back with a wonderful audience and an amazing place for music. Then, we will be at the Cultural Palace in Bistrița, a city where brand-name cultural events take place all the time and a place which has a fantastic musical effervescence. So this invitation brought us a lot of joy. And, in a very surprising way, we will end the tour on May 23rd in Zlatna, a place that I discovered a couple of years ago and where I played a few times. Yet again, it has a very nice and welcoming audience, and it's very close to Alba Iulia. I'm sure there will also be many people coming from there to listen to us in Zlatna. Therefore, it's a chain of bout six or seven concerts that will present to the audience this "Dance and Suspense" show within our national tour "The Enchanted Flute".