Individual tickets for the George Enescu International Festival  will go on sale February 16, at 10:00, the organizers announced. The tickets can be purchased online from Eventim.ro, but also from Germanos, Orange, and Vodafone stores, Diverta, Humanitas, and Carturesti bookshops, Carrefour hypermarkets, OMV gas stations, and Eventim offices.

At past editions, online tickets sold out very quickly, as the festival attracts the audience with top names of the international classical music scene. The Recitals and Chamber Concerts festival passes for this year event, which takes place between September 2 and September 24 in Bucharest and several cities in the country, sold in the first minute after being put up for sale last December.

The festival brings this year to Bucharest a star-studded line-up including among others: the pianists Martha Argerich, Lang Lang, Daniil Trifonov, and Khatia Buniatishvili; violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter; the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, the mezzosoprano Magdalena Kožená, the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky; conductors Zubin Mehta, Antonio Pappano, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Riccardo Chailly, Michail Pletnev and Vladimir Jurowski. Top orchestras such as Orchestra Scala di Milano, Orchestra Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Münchner Philharmoniker or London Philharmonic Orchestra are also expected at the event.

Indian conductor Zubin Mehta is the honorary president of the festival, while Vladimir Jurowski, the principal conductor and artistic advisor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, is the festival's artistic director.

A premiere of this year’s edition of the festival is a series of concerts titled the Music of the 21st Century, where important contemporary composers, such as Sir James MacMillan, Rodion Shchedrin, Jörg Widmann and Magnus Lindberg, will be present.

Winners of previous editions of the George Enescu Competition, including Valentin Radutiu, Mihai Ritivoiu, Viniciu Moroianu, Victoria Vassilenko, Zlatomir Fung, Luiza Borac, Josu de Solaun, Stefan Tarara, Eun-Sun Hong, Vassilis Varvaressos and Dong Hyun Kim, will also perform at the festival.

A total of 80 events are scheduled to take place as part of the festival in Bucharest and in cities such as Iași, Brașov, Cluj, Timișoara, Bacău, Ploiești and Sibiu.

The program of the festival can be checked here.

Update: Subscriptions for 2017 George Enescu Festival in Romania, now on sale

Berliner Philharmoniker promises to return to Romania’s George Enescu Festival in 2019

Zubin Mehta will be honorary chairman of the 2017 George Enescu Festival

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo: Vlad Eftenie)