The 3rd edition of the CellEAST Festival will take place in Bucharest and Brașov from the 7th to the 15th of May 2024. The cello player Răzvan Suma, the founder of the project, tells us more about the events of the festival, the guest artists and more, during an interview with our colleague Sarah Natsis:

Mr. Răzvan Suma, CellEAST Festival reaches its third edition this year. How have you mapped its structure and how does it differ from previous editions?

The CellEAST Festival of 2024 has a component that adds something new to the event. I mean, I think that up until now we have followed a classical pattern for a violin festival, where we have an educational part, masterclasses with all the participating teachers, a show, entertainment, which includes concerts and recitals.

This year we came up with a new element, namely the CellEAST Competition, which is a four-stage competition that appeals to... and I can tell you the number of participants - 70 participants from 18 countries. From our point of view, it is a victory. It's placing the competition somewhere very high in Eastern Europe and we're very happy because that's exactly what we wanted, to create something in Eastern Europe that matters.

Can you tell us about the terms of participation?

The terms of participation are adapted to the post-pandemic times, which have streamlined the transportation and logistics of a competition. The first round took place online, video recordings of the participants were sent, and based on this footage the selection of the 70 participants was made. There were more, but 70 participants made it to the second round, the one requiring in person attendance.

As mentioned on the official event page, for nine days, Bucharest will become the capital of cellists from all over the world. Among the well-known names there are Attila Pasztor, Marin Cazacu and Yoko Hasegawa. How did you select the musicians we will be able to hear during this new edition and what specificity do you think the festival will provide to such a combination of cello players?

You mentioned three of the participants - each of them with an apart personality. Overall, there will be 16 of us. In addition to the Romanian cellists, the "natives" Marin Cazacu, Ștefan Cazacu, Mircea Marian, Ella Bokor (who is also a festival coordinator), we have a few headliners.

I would like to mention Wen-Sinn Yang, who is a professor at the University of Munich and Marius Urba, who is a Lithuanian, although his name sounds very Romanian, he is the band master of the Bamberg Symphony. The two of them will go beyond all the festival barriers. They will start by holding two concerts on Thursday and Friday, the 9th and the 10th of May, at the Romanian Athenaeum.

I could list them all, but all the details, of course, can be found on celleast.com.