Top performers, opera, outdoor events, exhibitions as Enescu Festival enters third week
The Vienna Philharmonic, Camerata Bern and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Camerata Salzburg and Janine Jansen, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester led by Vladimir Jurowski, Orchestra Dell' Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia and Cameron Carpenter…
Simona Fodor · Journalist
· Updated · 4 min read

The Vienna Philharmonic, Camerata Bern and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Camerata Salzburg and Janine Jansen, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester led by Vladimir Jurowski, Orchestra Dell' Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia and Cameron Carpenter are among the ensembles and soloists performing at Enescu Festival this week. More on the program and where to watch the events below.
Enescu Festival's third week brings concert versions of opera works, several of them as a premiere in the country. On September 11, conductor Lawrence Foster will lead the Hungarian Opera of Cluj for a program that includes Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. On September 12, the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu, and the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Iosif Ion Prunner, will deliver a concert version performance of Britten's Billy Budd. On Sunday, September 17, the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, this time led by Arnaud Arbet, will present Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, in a French version translated by Michel Vittoz and Arnaud Arbet.
The festival's series - Great Orchestras of the World, Atheaneum Concerts, Midnight Concerts, Enescu and His Contemporaries, and Romanian Orchestras - will bring to the stages of Bucharest violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Janine Jansen, while conductor Vladimir Jurowski, the festival's previous artistic director, returns alongside the Bayerisches Staatsorchester for two performances: one features pianist Yefim Bronfman, for a program that includes the prelude to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, and Mahler's Symphony No. 4, the other, violinist Vilde Frang for a program covering Poleva's White Interment, Berg's Violin Concerto, and R. Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie. During the weekend, the American organist and composer is back in Bucharest for a performance of several works by Bach and his own Improvisations.
The full program is listed here.
Associated events
After a break for several years, the Festival Square, a program of free, outdoor concerts, returns at this edition between September 17 and September 24 in the George Enescu Square, while VR installations, exhibitions, film screenings, and musical residencies add to the events associated with the festival.


