ORCHESTRA
Città di Cantù 33rd International Piano and Orchestra Competition - ORCHESTRA AND CONDUCTOR
State Philharmonic Orchestra of Romania conducted by M. Ovidiu Balan from Bacau
The International Piano and Orchestra Competition "Città di Cantù” continues to evolve, not only in the phases that concern the competition, but also in the collaboration with the orchestra.
On the stage of the Fumagalli Theater, the venue of the competition, the arrival of an orchestral group with a new name is announced, which collects the legacy of 30 years of collaboration with the orchestra professors of Bacau, envisaging new paths for the future.
Under the name ”State Philharmonic Orchestra of Romania”, more than ever trained and directed by the expert and wise baton of Maestro Ovidiu Balan, the first parts of the main Romanian orchestras will line up, ready to play excellently the thirty-year repertoire of the Cantù competition, together with a new aggregation of talented orchestral musicians coming from all over Romania.
M° Ovidiu Balan - Conductor
Maestro Ovidiu Balan, the “honorific manager” and conductor of the philharmonic orchestra of Bacau, belongs to the generation of dedicated and famous leaders of orchestra whose merits are internationally acclaimed.
He studied in Bucharest with Maestro Iosif Conta and attended courses in Holland, France, USA with Jean Fournet, Marius Constant, Fernand Quatrocchi, Eugene Ormandi, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel.
He has conducted important orchestras (USA, Cuba, Italy, Germany, France, Hollland, Bulgaria, Yougoslavia, Russia, Portugal, Poland, Hungaria) and received the A.T.M. Prize for the interpretation of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the prize of the art critics for the interpretation of contemporary music and the prize awarded by the newspapers in Bacau.
For his artistic activity he received the “Cultural Merit” award (1982), the title of “Master of Arts” (1994) in the Moldovian Republic, of Honorary Citizen of Bacau city and district, “Puncetto d’Oro” of the city of Varallo - Italy and Honorary Citizen of city of Cantù - Italy