Enescu Festival 2023: Event adds series of concerts for children

This year’s edition of George Enescu Festival will include a series of concerts for families and children, set to take place at the Majestic Hall of Bucharest’s Odeon Theater.

The series of four concerts is meant to pique the young ones interest in classical music and instruments and get them acquainted with the works of some of the greatest classical music composers.

The first concert in the series, titled The orchestra goes to the zoo, will see Romanian-Canadian conductor Andrei Feher lead the Royal Camerata Orchestra for a performance covering works by Jacques Ibert, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Sergei Prokofiev.

For the series’ second event, the Romanian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Gabriel Bebeșelea, will present Pinocchio… with “strings” attached, with a program including the first part of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and works by Bella Bartók and Michael Gandolfi.

The Radio Chamber Orchestra will take the stage for the third concert, Parizade and the Singing Tree, conducted by Cristian Spătaru. The program includes work by Bizet, Haydn, and Karim Al-Zand.

For the last concert, the Orchestra of Ion Dacian Operetta and Musical Theater, conducted by Constantin Grigore, will present The Composer… Who is it?, with works by Beethoven, Paul Dukas, and Noel Paul Stookey.

“In the series of concerts for families and children, we introduced the idea of a story told through music; every concert has a story since this is how parents often communicate with children, and music is a story that needs discovering. Every concert is focused on a group of orchestra instruments; in one we discover the violin, in another, a percussion instrument, in another, a woodwind instrument. The entire orchestra will be present, but the focus will be on one instrument. This is why, those who make it to all four concerts will discover a complete series. If they can attend only one concert, they will not miss the story, but my advice is to try and attend all four,” Cristian Măcelaru, the festival’s artistic director, explained.

The festival takes place between August 27th and September 24th.

(Photo: Enescu Festival)