Special concert on the Romanian Principalities Union Day
The Day of the Union of the Romanian Principalities, celebrated with a special concert, Friday, January 24, 2025, at the Capitol Hall. The Banatul Timisoara Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Stefan Geiger, offers the audience a special program, which includes the works of two Romanian composers: Constantin Silvestri and George Enescu, as well as a work by Béla Bartók, a Hungarian composer born in Sânnicolau Mare, who has capitalized on the beauty of Romanian folklore in his works.
Opening the concert, we hear the suite “Transylvanian Folk Games” by C. SILVESTRI. Then, performed by the orchestra and the talented pianist Dinu Mihăilescu, we hear Béla Bartók’s Concerto No. 3 for piano and orchestra in E major, Sz 119. Composed in 1945, in the last months of his life, the composer dedicated the work to his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, on her birthday.
As 2025 will mark the 70th anniversary of George Enescu’s death, the audience is invited to hear one of his marvelous works – Symphony No. 1 in E flat major, op. 13 – at the end of Friday’s concert. The work, which reflects Enescu’s training in both the Brahmsian and French traditions, was composed in 1905 and premiered a year later in Paris.
Tickets are available on the website of the Banatul Philharmonic Timișoara, at the box office and on myticket.ro: https://shorturl.at/BQpB5
STEFAN GEIGER
He began his professional journey as an orchestral musician, initially as principal trombonist at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and shortly afterwards in the same position at the NDR Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
In 1996, after completing his conducting studies and assisting renowned conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev and Christoph von Dohnanyi, he took over the artistic direction of the Bremen State Youth Orchestra. In the years 2002-2007 he was entrusted with the direction of the Bremen University of the Arts Orchestra as a guest professor. He has collaborated with numerous orchestras, including the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, Ensemble Resonanz, Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen, Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra North, Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen, Philharmonie Rostock, Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchrestra Radio Romania, State Philharmonic Orchestra “Transilvania”, Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra, Campinas Municipal Symphony Orchestra, Bahia Symphony Orchestra, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra and Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra.
For many years Stefan Geiger has been guest conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.
He is the co-founder and chairman of the jury of the German Games Music Award, a competition in cooperation with Radio Bremen, which provides a platform for young composers creating sophisticated music for video games. The initiative not only attracted significant attention online, with the inaugural event in 2012 becoming one of the most followed posts of its kind on “Arte-Liveweb”, but continues to run successfully to this day.
In 2016, Stefan Geiger became artistic director of the Teatro Guaíra in Curitiba, Brazil. As chief conductor of the Orchestre Sinfônica do Paraná, he has successfully realized opera and ballet productions in addition to symphonic concerts. He also conducted the orchestra at the most renowned festival in South America, the “Festival de Inverno de Campos do Jordao” in 2019.
In the seasons 2022/23 and 2023/24, Stefan Geiger was the Principal Guest Conductor of the “Banatul” Philharmonic Timișoara. He has conducted several times concerts of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, collaborating also with the Orchestra Brasileira of Rio de Janeiro and the Symphony Orchestra of Oulu, Finland.
Stefan Geiger conducts the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Newcastle, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. He also participates in renowned festivals such as the Kissinger Sommer and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
DINU MIHĂILESCU
Born in 1988 in Timisoara and coming from a family of musicians, Dinu graduated from the National College of Arts in Timisoara. Since 2009, he continued his higher studies at the HEM in Geneva (Switzerland), in the class of Prof. Dominique Weber and Cédric Pescia, also perfecting his skills with renowned musicians such as Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, etc.
In 2021, Dinu obtained his PhD in Music at the Faculty of Music and Theatre in Timișoara, specializing in the musical language and pianistic creation of the composer Béla Bartók.
He has collaborated as a soloist with important orchestras in the country (Timișoara, Arad, Cluj, Sibiu, Sibiu, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Bucharest), in the company of conductors Remus Georgescu, Gheorghe Costin, Florin Totan, etc. His debut on the Bucharest music scene took place in 2005, with a recital at the Studio Hall of the Romanian Athenaeum.
Internationally, Dinu performs on recognized stages in Switzerland (Victoria Hall and Studio Ernest Ansermet in Geneva, etc.), USA (Steinway Gallery Hall in Detroit, Cook Hall at Michigan State University), also giving solo recitals and collaborating with renowned musicians in the international festivals Sonoro Interferences (Romania), Festival de Verbier UNLTD and Puplinge Classique (Switzerland), Millennium Piano Festival (Spain).
Since 2017, Dinu has been teaching piano at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, Dance and Theater and at the Lausanne School of Music (Switzerland). His recent projects have included the recording of a solo CD entitled ROmerican Avant-Garde (2024) and a two-piano CD (OXY MORE. 2021) with Swiss pianist Philippe Boaron. His future projects include participation in international festivals (Stravinsky Festival and Verbier UNLTD, etc.) and unusual artistic collaborations (jazz singer Youn Sun Nah, pianist Denis Kozhukhin, etc.).
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Organizer: Filarmonica 𝐵𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑙 Timișoara
Program financed from the local budget of Timisoara Municipality
