Violoncellissimo at World Press Photo Exhibition
This year, the World Press Photo exhibition in Bucharest is supported by the International George Enescu Festival, as a cultural partner. The most important international cultural event organized in Romania supports the presentation of the World Press Photo exhibition in Bucharest, as this initiative contributes to connecting the country to the global circuit of creativity and free expression. World Press Photo is the most famous photojournalism exhibition globally. In anticipation of the International George Enescu Festival: the Violoncellissimo ensemble will give a recital at the gala opening of the World Press Photo exhibition in Bucharest, this evening, at 7:30 PM, in University Square.
The event takes place on Europe Day, and the opening is expected to be attended by personalities from the cultural, social and political circles in the country and abroad. Violoncellissimo is one of the most famous Romanian chamber ensembles in the last 15 years and was formed at the initiative of the renowned cellist Marin Cazacu, who, together with his current and former students, opened a new path in promoting music and young talents in Romania.
In 2001, the concert held by Violoncellissimo at the George Enescu International Festival was a great success. Seven years later, Violoncellissimo amazed the audience with an unprecedented musical moment, when 60 cellists took to the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum – “a concert worthy of the book of records”, as the press wrote at the time. This year, on May 26, Marin Cazacu will once again take to the Romanian Athenaeum stage, this time in an extraordinary concert alongside 100 cellists. The Violoncellissimo Ensemble, in a larger format, will also participate in this year’s edition of the “George Enescu” International Festival with an extraordinary concert that will take place at the Romanian Athenaeum on September 27. Born on September 30, 1956 in Vidra-Ilfov, Marin Cazacu studied the cello at the Dinu Lipatti Music High School in Bucharest with Professor Ion Urcan, then at the Ciprian Porumbescu State Conservatory with renowned professors Serafim Antropov and Aurel Niculescu.
He perfected his skills in Weimar, with Professor László Mezö, and was the assistant of maestro Radu Aldulescu at the mastery courses in Costineşti and Sinaia. Marin Cazacu is a laureate of international competitions in Geneva, Markneukirchen, Leipzig, Bologna and Belgrade. Since 1983 he has been a concert soloist of the “George Enescu” Philharmonic. He has performed all over the world, under the baton of great conductors: Ghennadi Rojdestvenski, Sergiu Comissiona, Cristian Mandeal, Lu Jia, Nanse Gum, Horia Andreescu, Antoni Ros Marba, Mendi Rodan, Misha Katz, Jean Périsson. Marin Cazacu’s name has often appeared on the posters of important festivals, such as those in Berlin, Bratislava, Bucharest, Hong-Kong, Macao, Munich, Milan, Mateus, Osaka, Singapore, Seoul, Sofia, Tokyo, Valencia, Venice.
In 1999, Marin Cazacu founded the International Festival “Enescu and the Music of the World”, which takes place every summer in Sinaia, around the anniversary of the great musician’s birthday (August 19, 1881). For organizing this festival and establishing the first national youth orchestra (the Romanian Youth Orchestra, under the baton of Cristian Mandeal), Marin Cazacu was rewarded in 2008 by the magazines VIP and Actualitatea Muzicală with the Project of the Year Award. In 2004, Marin Cazacu was decorated with the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of Knight.
Marin Cazacu plays a Lorenzo Ventapane cello (1820).
