Last Saturday, the Radio Big Band held a special concert, "Jazz for Kids", dedicated to June 1st. Many children were invited on stage, all of them musicians with a great future. They drew long rounds of applause from the young and old spectators who filled the Radio Hall that morning. Our colleague, Viorel Grecu, was also at the concert and shares his impressions with us.

The members of the Radio Big Band made a spectacular entrance on stage, coming from the audience while playing an intro to Henry Mancini's famous Pink Panther theme on brass instruments. The second song in the program was "Bohemian Rhapsody", by the band Queen, sung with enthusiasm by the Radio Children's Choir, accompanied of course by the orchestra conducted by Simona Strungaru.

Then the guests arrived one by one, young musicians, from pre school age to high school students. Each demonstrated talent, passion and a lot of maturity in approaching a repertoire that included valuable jazz themes.

We had several instrumentalists, such as the little pianist David Partenie, the clarinetist Eric Teodoru or the saxophonist David Ivașcu, the last one with a surprising interpretation of the theme "'Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk.

Damian Barbu impressed in both roles as a vocalist and saxophonist. We also heard from Maya Sophie Burneci as a trumpetist in tandem with her father, Sebastian Burneci, and also as a vocal soloist.

Other outstanding singers also took the stage: Anastasia Zmău, Ana Parghel-Sârbu and Katia Florea.

Teodora Dima and Colin-Justin Doljescu from the "Dinu Lipatti" College of Arts performed the song "Too Close for Comfort" as a duet. A special vocal quartet, led by teacher Marina Arsene, also participated from the same college. With her were Timea Beucan, Mario Tudor and Teodora Antal.

Irina Sârbu and Cătălin Milea sang together two songs from "Joyous Carousel", a jazz album for children, released on June 1st.

The audience also enjoyed the appearance of a quartet with an averageage of five, which offered us a tasty adaptation of the theme from "The Aristocratic Cats".

The Jazz for Kids show ended after almost two hours, on the tunes of the song "We Are the World", sung by the Radio Children's Choir together with the Radio Big Band and the "Jazz for Kids" guests.

After the concert, I collected some impressions from parents wh oaccompanied the little spectators to the Radio Hall:

"Very talented children... it was an extremely emotional concert! The orchestra, as usual, sensational; I have heard the orchestra before. It was wonderful."

Reporter: How did the little ones feel?

I hope well, especially because I think music is the most beautiful thing on Earth. So it really was a beautiful day.

"The orchestra did very well, the selection was well done, probably quite elevated for this infantile targeted audience, so to speak, but all in all very good. And an initiative to repeat."

Teodora Domnișoru, a member of the Radio Children's Choir, was also delighted by the "Jazz for Kids" experience: "First of all, we really liked that we had the opportunity to perform alongside other artists on stage and that overall, we sang some songs dedicated to children like us."

In the backstage, we spoke with another main character of the show, the trumpetist and singer Maya Sophie Burneci, a student in the 6th grade: "I was with my friends, being with colleagues from school and with those little children who sang, I felt so much freedom and it was all very natural. I find this combination of instruments very interesting - my own instrument, the voice, and the trumpet - and I like how everything works. My example as a trumpetist is my father, I take everything from my father. And I like more than one voice, I don't have just one favorite."