More and more often we discover artists specialising in the sphere of early music, that transcends stylistic barriers and offers its experience to the great European orchestral ensembles, sometimes occasionally, and sometimes, as in the case of the bandmaster Andrew Manze, by having a career that concentrates on both modern and early music sound discourses. He has a name we associate with the baroque violin and with the ensemble called The English Concert which he conducted between 2003 and 2007. We are aware of countless recordings of the English maestro as a lead singer and an associate conductor of the Academy of Early Music, but we also recognize the other side of the coin, where Andrew Manze has been the main bandmaster of the Helsinborg Symphony Orchestra since 2006 and simultaneously, an associate guest bandmaster of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Scotland. Another crucial chapter of his career began in 2014, when he became the main bandmaster of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hanover, with an extended contract that ended in 2023.

It is 2024 and I am pleased to invite you to the Grand Studio of the German Broadcasting Corporation in Hanover, on Thursday, the 18th of January, from where we will be broadcasting a new live concert of this ensemble, also conducted by Andrew Manze, featuring the violinist Isabelle Faust, a star of the artistic world who made her debut on this stage more than 10 years ago, now returning as lead singer of Antonín Dvořá's Concerto op. 53 in A minor for violin and orchestra. She is that kind of exhaustive artist who has an immense understanding and comprehension of violin repertoire. As a result, we find her either beside the pianist Alexandr Melnikov performing the Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven, alongside the ensemble "Il Giardino Armonico" of Milan in order to complete the Mozart Concertos for violin and orchestra, or performing the partitas and sonatas for solo violin by Bach, Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky with the ensemble Les Siècles conducted by François-Xavier Roth. This is because her repertoire includes the entire stylistic scale - from baroque to contemporary music, often including opening performances in her appearances on world stages.

In the second part of the concert held at the Grand Studio of the German Broadcasting Corporation in Hanover, Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony II Op. 63 in E flat major is set to be performed. It is "a passionate pilgrimage of the soul" according to the English composer, an opus dedicated to a king. A British reading is planned, under Andrew Manze, as was the Symphony I in A-flat major written by the same composer and performed in June 2022, also conducted alongside the Hanover Philharmonic Orchestra.

Therefore, I point out a large-scale concert, both in terms of repertoire, but especially in terms of the figures involved - an ideal team according to the organisers, broadcasted live on Radio România Muzical.