SoNoRo Conac, 11th edition, 2023
This year, we add eight more Romanian architectural works to the map we’ve started 11 years ago with Sonoro Conac. Two of the spaces we will visit are newly restored and given back to the local, national and international communities, namely the Cloister of the Franciscan Monastery in Gherla and the Teleki Castle in Posmuș, and this is extremely important. As with every edition, there is an encounter between arts, especially between music and painting, and this year we are happy to perform concerts in the „Ion Ionescu-Quintus” Museum of Art in Ploiești, Prahova County – a building included on the list of historical monuments, in the residence of painter Gheorghe Fikl in Socolari – an area called “the village of Timisoara artists” and in the Painters’ Colony in Baia Mare – a place representative of the Baia Mare school of painting, founded in 1896.
Due to their importance in the architectural landscape, we also included in this year’s trip the Choral Temple in Bucharest, the National Theatre in Caracal, and the Palace of Justice in Arad.
We’ve left behind an anniversary edition and now we’re heading into the story of a new SoNoRo Conac decade. The 11th edition is about to begin and, as always, with renewed excitement, we are thrilled about the extraordinary places we will visit, about the spaces whose history we will reflect in music and everything that will lead us to discover beauty once again.
This year we invite you on a journey called The Fiddler on the Roof – a title that refers to the stringed instruments included on our tour, two of which are Stradivarius. I am happy that three of the musicians that the Romanian audience has met before in other SoNoRo concerts – Tatiana Samouil, Alexandra Tirșu and Kirill Troussov – have accepted the invitation to participate to this tour, as well. At the same time, for the first time in a SoNoRo project, I am delighted to introduce to you the violinist Aylen Pritchin, a world-renowned and award-winning musician.
Our musical itinerary will include eight concerts where music will become the link between the past and the future. What a spectacular journey awaits us!
Răzvan Popovici, SoNoRo Conac Tour Director
For more than a decade we have been enjoying music in some of the most iconic buildings in the country, royal residences and manors with charming gardens or, sometimes, in places that needed our presence so that they don’t fade into oblivion. Each of these places bears the memory of exceptional people and deeds that can still be models and sources of inspiration today. With every edition, SoNoRo Conac maps out a new itinerary, introduces a new theme. And here we are, in our 11th year of touring, seeing our mission accomplished: we have built, with the help of music, an emotional map of the most beautiful heritage buildings and musical harmonies, we have met young artists who went on to conquer the great stages of the world, and we have met an increasingly large audience. We are grateful to our clients for their faithfulness in following us on this musical and architectural journey. Together we resonated with the emotion received through music and took energy and inspiration for our personal projects.
At the beginning of the year, Răzvan Popovici received the Excellency Award for the 10 years of SoNoRo Conac tour from the Romanian music critics. This award is a recognition of the cultural value of this project, to which we are organically linked, as it is one of the most known and appreciated BRD cultural hotspots.
Flavia Popa
General Secretary BRD Groupe Société Générale