Because in March our radio station celebrates 25 years and because you have a close relationship with Radio România Muzical through the prism of the project The Heirs of Musical Romania, I would like you to tell us, to begin with, what the participation in the project organized by our station and the Pipera Rotary Club meant for you?

The heirs are musical. I know that in fact, in the meantime, musicians who are younger than me participated and I still feel young and I think I am but it was a term that made me smile, to analyze a little the course, my personal history that also has a musical connection with Bucharest through my father who studied in Bucharest. I find it a very beautiful initiative, initiated by Mrs. Comandașu, a wonderful series of concerts, which on the one hand, honor young musicians, already called heirs and also supports them, brings them into a personal relationship, in a connection with Radio România Muzical. It is more than just a concert and now that I notice that this series continues and every year there are new heirs, musicians who have a close connection with the Radio.

In March 2020 you sang in the project together with the Swedish pianist Per Rundberg, in a recital that we can also link to your debut in a chamber position on a Bucharest stage. Can you share with us how you felt and what memories you have of that occasion?

Indeed, it was my first recital in Bucharest, I played chamber music in other contexts in Romania and Bucharest. It was a special moment, because Per Rundberg is an old friend and pianist with whom I have already collaborated, probably for more than 15 years. It was a beautiful and happy event and opportunity to bring this friend for the first time to Bucharest to sing together. I sang in many places and many cities and countries, in unexpectedly small places and at the edge of the map, so to come to Bucharest was a special event, which I know he also enjoyed very much - one can also hear the dedication and passion, the energy he put into the interpretation of the Rachmaninoff Sonata, so it was and is really a precious memory for me and with an audience where there were many cellists, young cellists, master Cazacu. So the sense of family was broadened in the sense of the family of the cellists present in the room.

On the occasion of this recital was presented a disc published by Casa Radio Publishing House containing a concert from the festival Magical summer. We know how impatient you are waiting then for the meeting with the Romanian public through the autograph session you offered at the end of the event. With the same thoughts I think you are waiting for a reunion with the Romanian public. Is there a chance that it will materialize in the near future?

There is an event coming soon. I return to the Athenaeum in May. It will be a first cello festival in Bucharest. Different cellists from different countries will gather, an initiative of masters Razvan Suma and Marin Cazacu and of course the guests will perform, masterclasses. I think it will also be a concert, a cello ensemble with the participants, so I, in the first week of May, will be in Bucharest and I sing the Dvořák Concerto with the George Enescu Philharmonic.

You are currently a professor at the Carl Maria von Weber University in Dresden and a member of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin. What concerts and other projects does your agenda include?

I'm a solo-cellist at DSU, so head of the game, where I alternate with my colleague. It means that half of the program he sings it and others I sing it myself and in this situation I have the opportunity to combine the experience with other solo music, chamber music activities and I like to have this diversity in my musical activities. Another, actually larger piece of the musical puzzle that each musician builds is also the teaching and being a professor at the university I also have contact with the next generation, many times, and that confirms many teachers and great soloists who were and are also pedagogues. You actually understand the music, but also the cello playing better by talking aloud about it, analyzing it, explaining it to other young cellists. I believe in this wealth of activity, whether it's on a big stage, symphonic context, soloism, recital, chamber music, so I enjoy this wealth of activities in my musical life.

I would also like to mention the disc that you made together with Per Rundberg with the integral of the sonatas for cello and piano by George Enescu. Enescu is perhaps another element that connects you to Romania and your roots, which you said in an interview with our station in the past, that you are concerned. You then state that "music means not only a journey inside a work, but also a journey into one's own interior." Did your contact with Enescu's music lead you to this connection?

Any music, it would be tragic not to trigger a journey into one's own soul. Of course, the connection through the Romanian roots, especially for every Romanian musician, Enescu has a special importance and in other interviews I have sometimes pointed out that he has become almost somehow inflationary, to keep praising Enescu a bit of a Romanian, but it is actually, indeed, necessary and we have so many reasons, hundreds of reasons to support this music that is still too little sung for various reasons. It was inevitable for me to deal with it, especially after my prize in the contest Enescu and very, very many connections at a musical level, but also personally, for me, in my life are related to Enescu. If I walk the streets around the Athenaeum, there are so many important memories that I will not forget all my life, in which, in one way or another, George Enescu appears. So I can say that I have a particularly personal connection with his music. I love cello sonatas, the Enescu Concert symphony was the first work I sang at the Athenaeum together with the Philharmonic George Enescu and I really feel it, and I'd like to say that I don't say it easily and just to say nice words and as I called them, inflation, but I really feel these things.

In the end, because we are in an anniversary moment, do you have a message for the listeners of our station?

I am very glad that they are with us, with the music. I am glad that this close connection with classical music, with the past, with tradition, but also with the rediscovery, reinterpretation of music through Musical heirs it is kept so colorful and alive, not only by musicians, but of course also by listeners. Some cannot exist without others, so I want this relationship to be as close and long as possible and I enjoy all the experiences we have together, whether I am in the room or in front of the speaker.