The Radio Big Band performs a Natalie Cole tribute concert on Thursday January 11th at 7 pm at Sala Radio. It is the first concert this year with the orchestra conducted by Simona Strungaru. The special guests are soloist Mihaela Alexa and pianist Sorin Zlat. We find out more from them about Thursday evening's event in an interview with Viorel Grecu.

How did the idea for this Natalie Cole tribute come about at the beginning of the year?

Mihaela Alexa: We have been thinking about this tribute for a long time and we met Sebastian (Burneci n.n.) a few months ago and we said: let's do this concert anyway. We proposed it to him and he was very excited about the idea and basically he came up with the proposal to do it at the beginning of the year, because, as you know, Natalie Cole died at the end of the year, on the 31st, the last day of the year, and we said it would be a good idea to do this tribute somehow close to this event and to start the year with a strong concert.

Regarding the repertoire, Natalie Cole has not had a one-dimensional career. What will you actually play from her repertoire? Will it be more of an evening of standards?

Sorin Zlat: Yes. It will be an evening of standards with famous songs, The Great American Songbook, that she has sung over the years and are on her most famous albums, such as Unforgettable, songs like Paper Moon, This Can't Be Love, Orange Colored Sky, I'm Beginning to See the Light and many other surprises.

Mihaela Alexa: There will also be a song that she has been recognized with and has stayed in people's minds and hearts This Will Be (An Everlasting Love). It's a pop song with which she won many awards, but here it was somehow arranged and orchestrated for Big Band as well.

The arrangements, where do they come from?

Sorin Zlat: They are original arrangements, the very arrangements that she played and my luck was that I played a lot in America, I have a lot of friends there and they helped me, they sent me the original arrangements. They are very hard to find, but I managed to get them and I brought them here to Romania, Bucharest, Sala Radio.

It's going to be a very strong Natalie Cole touch, both in orchestration and vocal performance.

Mihaela Alexa: Yes. It will indeed be a strong touch of the wonderful Natalie Cole, but at the same time I will try, as much as possible, to bring my own interpretation, even if Natalie Cole is one of my favourites. My journey into jazz started thanks to an album I listened to many, many years ago, which Sorin played for me at home, in Bacău, where we are from. He had a tape of Natalie Cole at the time and he said: look, let me play you something. At that time I was only playing classical music, and when he played me this tape I was really fascinated and I fell in love with Natalie Cole and this wonderful genre that she plays, standard jazz, which we will also present. For me, Natalie Cole is very important in what I have become as a musician and I will try to keep as much as possible the interpretation that she gave to these songs and the style, but I will also try to bring my personal contribution to these pieces.