The National Symphony Orchestra of Romania, led by conductor Cristian Măcelaru, will embark on their first-ever U.S. tour today, January 6th, 2019! The tour will honor the 100th anniversary of the Great Unification. The Great Unification in 1918 resulted in all the historical provinces inhabited by Romanians to get together, within one single country, Romania. The orchestra will perform 5 concerts with young Romanian cellist Andrei Ioniță, winner of the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition, and 2 concerts in New York with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Leonidas Kavakos plays Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto no. 1, a stark and sombre work full of relentless drama and grim humour. Cristian Măcelaru will complete this all-Russian programme with a tour de force for virtuoso orchestra. And what a work it is: Stravinsky’s formerly scandalous Le sacre du printemps, now a well-established cult masterpiece of modern music.

A reflection on games, strategy, motion, and much more, “Play” won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award. Andrew Norman composed the piece in 2013, and this is the most recent revision of it. From a concert in November, 2018, Cristian Măcelaru conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Leonard Bernstein: Candide – Overture; Jules Massenet: “Suis je gentille ainsi? Allons, il le faut…” from the opera “Manon”; Jules Massenet: Thaïs: Méditation; Erik Satie: Gymnopédies 1 and 3 (orchestrated by Debussy); Charles Gounod: “Un bouquet..Ah, je ris de..” from the opera “Faust”; Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No 9 E minor, op 95 – “From the New World”

The Violin Channel recently caught up with the Music Director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, conductor Cristian Măcelaru. We sat him down for a fun game of VC 20 Questions – to help gain some fascinating insight into the man behind the Maestro.

Music Director and Conductor Cristian Macelaru describes the intention behind his inaugural season at the helm of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Macelaru’s 2017 season includes works by 15 living composers, 11 of whom will be in residence, including Karim Al-Zand, Clarice Assad, Jake Heggie, Aaron Jay Kernis, David T. Little, and Cindy McTee. Guest artists include bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, pianist Jason Hardink, and violinist Jennifer Frautschi. The 55-year-old festival, hailed as a “new music mecca” by the New York Times, is held for two weeks each August in the charming coastal college town of Santa Cruz, California.

Avner Dorman: Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! for two drummers and big orchestra.
Martin Grubinger and Johannes Wippermann with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln.