On Saturday January 27th, violist Răzvan Popovici will perform in a gala entitled "Pe-un picior de plai, pe-o gură de rai" hosted by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Brașov. More details from the artist in an interview with Ioana Țintea.

Răzvan Popovici, the Brașov Philharmonic, will host an extraordinary gala on the occasion of the first visit of the International Classical Music Awards jury, whose awards are often called "the Oscars of classical music", which includes our colleague Cristina Comandașu, manager of Radio România Muzical. How important is this event for Romania?

It's a wonderful opportunity to show the international audience that we are a nation that matters, with great musicians and a long tradition. It was time to bring this jury to Romania.

On Saturday January 27th you will perform with pianist Ioan Dragoș Dimitriu, with whom you have collaborated in the past. How would you describe your artistic relationship with him?

It is a long-standing artistic relationship. I am very happy and very proud of him, especially because 17 years ago he was among the first beneficiaries of the SoNoRo scholarship through our educational project SoNoRo Interferences, then a few years later he was for the second time a scholarship holder of this ambitious educational program and over the years we obviously collaborated many times, first as an organizer, because he had an impresario agency in Vienna with which we collaborated very well, then he became the manager of the Brașov Philharmonic, with whom we played many times. We had projects together with SoNoRo and the Philharmonic and in the meantime we became good friends, so I am very happy that we can share the stage together again.

How did you choose to describe our country musically?

The reference repertoire for violin and piano is quite limited and we thought of choosing two pieces that could show the richness of this musical area of Eastern Europe and we chose two very beautiful pieces, the first one by Stan Golestan, an illustrious unknown in Romania, besides being a kind of enfant terrible and such an important personality for the Parisian life of the time. The piece is entitled Arioso and Allegro de concert and it is splendid and I think I chose it well, because what Golestan did with this piece was to unite a doina with a horta, which he composed in a Parisian impressionist way and tied them together in an extremely elegant and sophisticated way. After that, we will play George Enescu's only piece for violin and piano - Konzertstück. Again, a piece he wrote in Paris and which shows Enescu as an extremely elegant, sophisticated and I would say, very tender composer in the lines he composed.