At the beginning of the week, we invite you to listen to the recital of one of the most valuable cellists of the moment: Andrei Ioniță. He performs on Monday the 28^th of November 2022 at 3pm at London's Wigmore Hall. A new 5-star Concert at Radio România Muzical.

If some of you are wondering when this recital starts (1p.m London time), it is a series called Lunchtime concerts, which BBC3 has been organizing for years at the Wigmore Hall in London ; in fact, Radio România Muzical has been taking part of these live recitals for many years. They bring to the public both established musicians, already internationally famous, as well as (younger) artists who have been or are part of the BBC New Generation Artists promotion programme.

Andrei Ioniță was also an Artist of the new generation for two years, from 2016 to 2018, having the opportunity to perform in the company of BBC ensembles (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and make recordings in the studios of the English radio station. And this recital of his at Wigmore Hall is not a debut, as the cellist has been invited to the famous concert hall in London on other occasions.

This time Andrei Ioniță sings with the pianist Naoko Sonoda, the artist in whose company he can often be seen in recent years. They perform opuses signed by two of the great composers of the Viennese school (first and second), as well as a creation from the English music repertoire. On the poster are written, therefore, Sonata op. 102 no. 1 in C major by Ludwig van Beethoven, Three small pieces op. 11 by Anton Webern and Sonata op. 65 in C major by Benjamin Britten.

The recital will be a small one, so in the space of the 5-star Concerts show, I invite you to listen, after the end of the live broadcast from London, to the recording of an evening in which Andrei Ioniță was a soloist - the Concert given on May 20th, 2022 by the Symphony Orchestra National of the Bulgarian Radio Broadcasting, at the Bulgaria Hall in Sofia. Andrei Ioniță sang on that occasion the solo score of the Concert op. 104 in B minor for cello and orchestra by Antonín Dvořák. On the same evening, the orchestra also played Eight Russian Dances op. 58 by Anatoly Lyadov and Triptych Dance by Georgi Andreev. Mark Kadin is at the conductor's desk.

Andrei Ioniță, born in Bucharest in 1994, initially studied cello with Ani-Marie Paladi, then with Prof. Jens Peter Maintz at the University of Arts (UdK) in Berlin. In 2015, Ioniță won the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition, an unprecedented performance for a Romanian musician in this context. The young artist was already a laureate of the ARD, Hachaturian and Feuermann competitions. Andrei Ioniță plays a cello built in Brescia, Italy, by Giovanni Battista Rogeri in 1671, an instrument lent to the musician by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, of which he is a scholarship holder.

Andrei Ioniță collaborated with an extensive network of European orchestras, including the Munich and Dresden Philharmonics, the German Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester National de Belgique, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Also, in 2019-2020 he was "Artist in Residence" of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. His commitments led him to tour the USA, where he performed with the National Youth Orchestra of Romania, the Detroit, San Diego and Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestras. Throughout his career, he has worked with famous conductors such as Cristian Macelaru, Sylvain Cambreling, Kent Nagano, Omer Meir Wellber, John Storgårds, Joanna Mallwitz and Ruth Reinhardt. Andrei Ioniță's exceptional talent makes him a versatile and sought-after chamber music performer. In his concerts he joins forces with Martha Argerich, Christian Tetzlaff, Sergei Babayan and Steven Isserlis, among others. He is often invited to world-class concerts and festivals in the world of classical music. Highlights of the 2022/2023 season include concerts with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, both conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. Another peculiarity of the season is the appointment of Ioniță as "Artist in residence" in Timișoara, one of the cultural capitals of Europe in 2023.