On Saturday, February 26^th, on the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum, a concert will be held by the Romanian Youth Orchestra, conducted by Cristian Măcelaru. The conductor will be able to be heard for the first time in Romania after the moment when he was named in function as the artistic director of the George Enescu Festival.

This is not the first time that maestro Cristian Măcelaru is at the rostrum of the Romanian Youth Orchestra. For starters, please tell us a few words about previous collaborations.

First of all, maestro Cristiasn Măcelaru loves to invest in young people in Romania. He likes this because it is a guarantee of the musical future of professional orchestras in Romania. Having been doing this for at least 7 years, it is something special to observe the evolution of the youth orchestras, the ones he pastored during this period, and here is how what happens universally with the musical evolution of all mankind it is also reflected in the school that these young people from Romania live to the fullest with all these projects in which Cristian Măcelaru was a part.

How was Saturday night's schedule?

Saturday night's schedule is a technically difficult schedule for a youth orchestra. This is Dmitri Shostakovich's 10th Symphony. And, by the way, I have to say that in this symphony there is a special part, a Scherzo that describes Stalin; because it is well known that Dmitry Shostakovich suffered from the Stalinist regime. And in the first part will be the famous Violin and Orchestra Concerto by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It's a Russian music program. Russian music is one of the most appreciated in the world, Russian culture is appreciated. It has nothing to do with Russian politics at the moment. The repertoire proposals referred to two masterpieces of this Russian music repertoire - Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich - in which the Romanian Youth Orchestra could display its qualities and, above all, learn a new spirit to express itself through these two masterpieces of Russian classical music.

The soloist of the concert is the violinist Sarah Nemțanu, the concertmaster of the National Orchestra of France, a violinist with parents of Romanian origin. She was born in France, speaks and speaks Romanian very well and is involved not only in presenting the Tchaikovsky Concerto for violin as a soloist, but she will also be the orchestra's concertmaster in the second part, at the Shostakovich Symphony. And, by the way, she also worked with the string parties in the orchestra. So, it's a very special collaboration. I have to say that the orchestra adores it, appreciates it, it will be one of the most beautiful, most impressive and most emotional concerts we have prepared, because the repertoire is in such a way that the world can fully experience that emotion of which we need artistic emotion.

The rehearsal is open to the public in the Classic is Fantastic series. How do you see the importance of this relationship with the public?

We have always accepted that the general rehearsals are with the public and are intended for the cycle of concerts. Classic is fantastic. Educational concerts in general are extremely important from now on for the preparation of a new audience for symphonic concerts and the involvement of all forces, including symphony or opera orchestras, is needed to prepare a new type of audience. These concerts mean putting in front of these young people for us - because they will be parents with children between 6 and 10 years old - unique moments for them to love this music and to get closer to it, not to think that it's heavy music. On the contrary, it is an accessible music that will impress them and we hope that this idea of ​​organizing Saturday concerts in auditions with the public in the series of classical concerts is fantastic to continue the whole season.