Young violinist Daniel Lozakovich is the soloist in the concerts held on October 30th and 31st, 2025, by the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Foster. The 24-year-old musician won the Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition in 2016 and signed a contract with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon record label in the same year at the age of just 15. Violinist Daniel Lozakovich gave Ana Sireteanu an interview about his debut in Romania:

How did you receive the invitation to perform in Romania, and how would you describe your first contact with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra?

I had an unforgettable experience the first time I played alongside maestro Lawrence Foster in Marseille. We had a beautiful connection, heart to heart. In a way, culture is our way of creating bonds between souls, and when we find a match between two forms of expression, I think that is the most precious gift. After that, we had the opportunity to collaborate on several other concerts, and the maestro wanted to invite me to Bucharest, because he had been coming here for decades and in our conversations he expressed his feelings that connect him to Romania and this orchestra, so of course I was very happy to come to Bucharest with maestro Foster. I had heard wonderful things about this orchestra and this legendary concert hall, and at my first rehearsal on the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum, I had the opportunity to experience firsthand why they are so famous.

Why did you choose Felix Mendelssohn's Concerto in E minor, and what message do you want to convey to the audience through your performance?

I would say that this is probably one of the most frequently performed violin concertos. I want to show the audience, and others, the expressive potential of this concerto so that it is no longer seen as a routine piece. It has an extraordinary emotional charge that reflects the composer's feelings, and I consider this concerto to be the most dramatic work ever written. Mendelssohn composed this concerto shortly before his death, and it symbolizes all his inner feelings throughout his entire creative life up to that point. The work has a secret story, expressing acute suffering. At this point in his life, he had a close but secret relationship with the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind. There is no evidence of this relationship in Mendelssohn's writings, but references to the composer have been found in her biography. Mendelssohn dedicated an aria in his oratorio Elias to Jenny Lind. In music, the most terrible death of a work is routine, and unfortunately this concerto has become a routine piece. When you read an ff, an sf, or a pp in the score, often when you listen to that passage on a recording, you will hear an mf or mp. The extreme nuances that the composer specifically wanted are never used. To fully understand the message of this work, you have to use all your resources. This music is magical, angelic, but it also has painful moments. The third part is a celebration of life, but also a representation of his childhood memories. Many great artists have expressed images of childhood in their art before death, and that is why it is a perfect ending. In order to convey all these feelings, you have to live them, feel them, and then it can become a revelation, if played in the most expressive way, so that the soul expresses itself directly through instrumental music. If we do not put the same passion into our interpretation that he put into this score, then the result will not be good enough. I wholeheartedly believe that this concerto has so many qualities that have not been fully realized until now, and that is why I wanted to play it. And it is probably the perfect violin concerto, every note written has an important role in the whole, it is perfect!

How do you construct your own interpretation when you play a well-known piece? How do you find that hidden meaning in the score that you were talking about earlier?

Of course, first of all, you have to understand the composer's personality. In some cases, they will keep secret information about what inspired them for certain works. And then, music means harmony, melody, and rhythm, and you have to understand what these elements convey when put together. Let's think, for example, of a lyrical melody, but the harmony suggests that the desired effect is an echo. From the theatrical structure, it seems that this melody comes from nowhere, but if you feel it, you can understand how to play it. If it is too slow or too fast, the character will be lost. You have to feel the proportions in order to express the idea imagined by the composer. Then you have to connect with the score, but also with its external context. Usually, there are few elements in the score that can reveal its true character, so you have to look outside it, read the composer's biography, get to know their style and work in general. Intuition also plays an important role, allowing you to express the main meanings of that music through your own experiences. Music is art, and our whole life is connected to art, which is the only thing that unites us spiritually and is therefore a necessity for each of us.