Radio Romania Music - The finest classical music

Briefly, we are:

  • The only Romanian radio station dedicated exclusively to jazz and classical music
  • The first Romanian radio station of its kind which broadcasted online
  • 24 hours of non-stop 100% quality music classic, jazz&more: symphonic, chamber music, operetta, choral music, folk, jazz, soundtracks
  • The most important singers in recent recordings or archived concerts
  • We bring you the hottest news concerning both national and international events
  • Live broadcasts from the most famous concert halls in the world, where today's best ensembles perform on a regular basis
  • A radio station which aims at helping you relax, unwind, dream and do a little bit of soul searching

You must know that we have:

  • A young team of specialists, all having graduated from national and international music schools
  • Important partners from the music world and the Romanian cultural environment
  • Dedicated listeners, most of them with a medium to high social status
  • A complete, constantly updated website
  • Three online alternative stations: Opera mia, For kids, Relaxing music
  • An online archive of programmes in audio format, so that our shows are accessible at any time, according to each listener's schedule
  • A 4-in-1 production: programme, lesson, show, all put together in a site, The little music lover's lesson, the most adorable music lesson, with two elves and a hand puppet.
  • Live national and international broadcasts available 7 days since the airing date on the websites Radio concert season and Musical Europe today
  • A parallel English website (thanks go out to the MA students of the MA Programme for the Translation of the Contemporary Literary Text, supervised by University Professor Lidia Vianu, PhD)
  • The foreign musical exchanges department - part of Radio Romania Music, through which our station forwards to the European Broadcasting Union around 75 musical programmes every year, each comprising of several Romanian interpreters and composers
  • A member of the European Broadcasting Union's Cultural Group, namely Liliana Staicu, chief editor at Radio Romania Music
  • A member of the European Broadcasting Union's Musical Group, namely Alina Velea, the coordinator for The foreign musical exchanges department here at Radio Romania Music
  • A member of the EBU Contact Engineers' Group, namely Paul Pop, head of the technical department here at Radio Romania Music and the vice president of the above mentioned group

A word from our editor in chief

In a world whose frighteningly fast pace often consumes all our energy and cancels any and all emotions through self-imposed daily routine, Radio Romania Music is the alternative - a space where music, tranquility and peace of mind can be found, a unique presence in the surrounding world of sounds.

Radio Romania Music can become, for each and every one of you, a daily habit, up close and personal, a companion to your everyday activities and, most of all, a place where you can find your emotions, your passions, where you can feel comfortable and relaxed. Out of the need for spiritual enrichment, out of a deep desire to keep on learning or simply out of curiosity, I invite you to rejoice in the musical splendors that we try to offer you every moment of each day.

Radio Romania Music was inspired by all major artistic events which have unfolded all over the world in the past decade, thus finding its purpose to be the constant support of any and all valuable musical performance. Today, in a century which can be defined through a constant swirl of changes, we wish to remain the same sturdy friend, forever close to your soul, need and aspirations.

Music of all eras and styles, fresh information, live feeds from the very core of international musical events, programmes dedicated to all music lovers, be they young or old, all this plus a truly contemporary approach is what defines Radio Romania Music - classic, jazz&more, the environment of guaranteed exquisite taste and true artistic value

Liliana Staicu
Editor in chief




Radio Romania Music – Brief history

  • March 24th 1997: First day of broadcast on 72.08 MHz.

  • 1999: The Chopin Festival is a success, thins bringing forth awards from specialized critics. The programme list becomes flexible, successfully changing its structure twice a year.

  • 2000: Main shows: Marin Constantin – 75 anniversary concert, George Enescu – at millennium’s end, the Dinu Lipatti international festival.

  • November 15th 2000. Through the Open Radio Project, we broadcast, via satellite feed, in Europe and Israel, 3 hours every day, 6 days a week.

  • December 1st 2000. By broadcasting the Euroclassic Notturno programme, Radio Romania Music begins to broadcast 24 hours every day. Also from this day on, a new doorway opens to the great public: the 97,9 MHz frequency.

  • 2001. We participate with shows and concert feeds to the “Romania live” programme

  • September 1st 2003: Radio Romania Music broadcasts on a new frequency: 97,6 Mhz, which covers the Prahova, Dambovita, Brasov, Buzau, Arges, Covasna, Ilfov and partially Mures, Olt, Teleorman, Valcea, Giurgiu departments . The 72,08 Mhz, eastern wavelength, is no longer available.

  • October 2nd 2004: The 104,8 Mhz frequency begins to broadcast, covering Bucharest. The 97,9 Mhz frequency is no longer available.

  • 2005: 2005 –The George Enescu Year: an ambitious project which set out to shine light on the great composer and interpreter’s personality, fifty years after his death.

  • 2006 : The Mozart Year. Three days of Mozart – 27th, 29th of January and 5th of December, with programmes which reflected the work of one of the most beloved composers in the history of music at a moment when we celebrated 250 years from his birth.

  • March 2006 : the beginning of the series of concerts organized at the Carturesti-Verona bookshop, with very important guests such as Octavian Paler, Constantin Bălăceanu Stolnici, Victor Rebengiuc

  • January 2007: Radio Romania Music puts together a project under the patronage of the European Broadcasting Union entitled “Bucharest – a city of music”: concerts designed to reflect the music life of Romania’s capital city.

  • February 19th 2007: Radio Romania Music broadcasts via satellite feed and can be listened to nationwide but also in Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Switzerland, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italia, Montenegro, Serbia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Macedonia, The Republic of Moldavia, Monaco, Norway, Holland, Poland, The Russian Federation, Slovakia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Hungary, Vatican.
    The programmes are broadcasted un-encoded through the Thor III satellite and can be received through the Focus Sat operator or with any digital receiver.

  • July 1st 2007 – we begin to broadcast online

  • March 20th 2008 : the beginning of the « Radio Romania Music presents Romania’s Phylarmonics » programme – live concerts from Cluj and Timişoaraamongst which, in world premiere, a piece by Gyorgy Kurtag.

  • May 2008: the first national drafting regarding the selection of Romania’s representatives for the contests which took place under EBU’s patronage : New Talent and Concertino Prague. Since 2008, Radio Romania Music has organized each year these drafts, one palpable result being the qualification for the semi-finals of the New Talentcontest of Mezzo-soprano Antonela Bârnat (November 2009)

  • April 5th 2008 : The Karajan Day – one of the resounding editorial successes of the last few years

  • April 18th 2008 : The Little Music Lover’s Lesson at the Peleş National Musem– a programme taped and broadcasted by TVR Cultural. The 2008-2009 season meant a reconfiguring of the  Little Music Lover’s Lesson the programme is turned into a puppet show, complete with music, being completely independent from the show that is performed every two weeks in schools and kindergartens all over Bucharest.

  • 13th-17th of April 2009 : Handel-250 – 5 shows about the great composer, at a moment where we marked the passage of 250 years from his death.

  • May 31st 2009 : The Haydn Day entirely dedicated to the composer, at a moment when we commemorated 200 years from his death, initiative which morphed into the Haydn – 200 event, which unfolded throughout the summer of 2009 – every day we dedicated almost an hour and a half to the man considered to have been « The father of the symphony and of the string quartet»

  • 6th-7th of May 2009 : Radio Romania Music becomes involved in the Swinging Europe programme; Romania was the first country from the former soviet block which organized this event along with the European Broadcasting Union. The European Jazz Orchestra concerts, conducted by Peter Herbolzheimer, at the Metropolis theater and the Radio Hall, also the meeting of the jazz producers from the EBU - all of these were great successes.

  • June 29th –July 3rd 2009 : the unfolding of the « Paul Constantinescu – 100 » project, favored by the celebration on the 30th of June of 100 years from Paul Constantinescu’s birth ; Radio Romania is a awarded an honorary medal from the « Paul Constantinescu » Association for its efforts in the celebration of the Paul Constantinescu centennial.

  • August 30th –September 26th 2009 : a record of live feeds from the George Enescu Internation Music Festival– 59 concerts, over 10.000 minutes allotted to this event

  • October 5th 2009 : the unveiling of the new Radio Romania Music website, with its English version. The first alternative online station, Opera mia, begins to broadcast.

  • October 15th 2009: the beginning of the “Musical bookshop” project, which was realized along with the Humanitas chain of bookshops as partner

  • November 2009 : the Grigore Leşe – Songs from Lăpuş CD is as a part of the prestigious Ocora collection, produced by Radio France and distributed by Harmonia Mundi. The recordings were made available by Radio Romania Music through its foreign musical exchanges department

  • December 6th 2009 : the new website for the Little Music Lover’s Lesson is up and running; also the online alternative station For kids begins to broadcast.

  • December 17th 2009 : the first live audio-video feed on the RRM website– the national draft for the « New Talent » contest, guaranteed by the EBU

  • December 21st 2009 : the third online alternative station begins to broadcast: Relaxing music ; the English version of the Little Music Lover’s Lesson is available, including a first programme recorded in English.

The Radio Romania Music Programmes

  • info-bulletins about the most recent events in the Romanian and International music community

  • programmes of initiations, educations and musical esthetics

  • programmes which promote young talents

  • interviews with great Romanian and International cultural personalities

  • integrals of important composers and interpreters

  • interactive shows, where the listeners may intervene

  • portraits of composers and interpreters

  • live broadcasts from the Radio concert season and from all major national musical events

  • live broadcasts from the world’s major musical institutions and recordings from the EBU archive

  • the Euroclassic Notturno programme, taken from the European Broadcasting Union, for 6 hours (from 1 AM to 7 AM), every night;

  • entertaining shows

  • holidays specials

  • we broadcast the info bulletin from Radio Romania News

Translated by: Iulian Arabagiu
MA student, MTTLC, University of Bucharest