Youth choirs and high-profile Romanian personalities will take part in the 6th edition of the "Gavriil Musicescu" International Youth Choral Festival and Competition dedicated to patriotic songs, running July 1 - 8, informs Agerpres.
According to the organizers, the event will see the participation of choirs from Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Italy, Spain, Serbia, the People's Republic of China, the Syrian Arab Republic and Senegal.
"The team working on the organization of the festival are doing their best every year to invite to this event choral music personalities from the country and abroad, but new choirs as well. This year there will be 18 choirs performing in the contest, but all in all there will be 24 ensembles. This event helps to internationally promote the city of Iasi through the multiple venues picked for the festival events. This year's edition is special because we celebrate the Greater Union Centennial and introduced for the occasion patriotic music to be performed by the artists in the competition. This genre hasn't been in the spotlight since long and we, the musicians, are glad we can interpret and listen to this kind of music at the Iasi festival and throughout the year," director of the festival Daniela Dorosinca told a press conference.
She mentioned that the "Gavriil Musicescu" International Youth Choral Festival and Competition is part of the 2017 - 2020 Centennial Anniversary Program of the Iasi City Hall.
"The fact that we are staging such a large-scale festival of choral music in the year we celebrate the Centennial of the December 1918 Greater Union renders us responsible, but also proves that the Iasi City Hall's Centennial Anniversary Program has an integrating feature. The event is one of the 80 projects that include 180 events and manifestations that have been running in Iasi since December 2016, when we marked 100 years since the capital of Romania was moved to Iasi during the World War I. We will have various events until 2020, as we believe that the celebration of the Centennial must go beyond December 1, 2018, for the reason that the Greater Union was sanctioned in 1920 as a result of the peace treaties," said the director of the Centennial Department, Daniel Sandru, PhD.
According to Professor Sandru, the project carried out by the "Love and Trust" Association is particularly important due to its international dimension, but also because it highlights national identity.
"In a globalized world where multiculturalism prevails, we have the mission to clarify what national identity is, at the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the modern Romanian state. Religious music is important in defining the concept of a nation's identity," said Daniel Sandru.