Conductor Christian Badea Returns to the desk of the National Radio Orchestra
Friday, 11 June 2010 , 19.00

In the last month of this season of Radio Orchestras and Choirs, famous conductor Christian Badea will be returning to the desk of the National Radio Orchestra to perform at the Radio Concert Hall on June 4th and 11th, starting from 19:00.

Under the baton of Christian Badea the first concert – Johannes Brahms’Violin and Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 102 – is to be performed by violinist Alexandru Tomescu and ‘cellist Filip Papa. The programme also includes Diana Rotaru’s Chorals and Music Boxes and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in B minor, Pathétique, Op. 74

The second concert scheduled for June 11th features pianist Horia Mihail who is to perform Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21. The other works included in the programme are Diana Rotaru’s Symphony No. 2 and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Organ’ Op. 78

Conductor Christian Badea who is a renowned personality of our times, is often invited to perform on famous opera stages such as the New York Metropolitan Opera. He studied violin at the Bucharest Conservatory and in 1970 left for Brussels with a scholarship where he studied conducting techniques. Then he studied in Salzburg with Herbert von Karajan and at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York where one of his most important mentors was Leonard Bernstein. His career started in the United States as musical director of Columbus Symphony. Since his first conducting in 1987 at the Metropolitan Opera, Christian Badea has held more than 170 performances at this famous New York venue and has gained notoriety by being invited to conduct at the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, as well as the Bavarian State Opera in Munich or the Lyon National Opera. More than eighty operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Strauss, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini or Sergei Prokofiev have been performed in a special manner under his baton. Christian Badea received a Grammy Award in 1985 for Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. The audience in Bucharest was able to see him again in October 2006 after thirty-two years of absence. Gustav Mahlers’ Symphony No. 9 performed by the National Radio Orchestra during the opening of the 2006/2007 season was very well received by the critics as well as the musicians he has collaborated with. In Bucharest, Christian Badea has also performed new concerts alongside the National Radio Orchestra and was invited to inaugurate the 140th Anniversary Concerts series of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra (October 2008).