Classical music festival in temple, church, and club

Music can be a great therapy for many people. The International Classical Music Festival SoNoRo takes place in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca from October 27th to November 12th, including in unique venues such as the Coral Temple, Club Expirat, in the Royal Living Room of the National Art Museum in Bucharest for the first time, and the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Cluj-Napoca. The festival's motto is "On the couch," a reference to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis method and implicitly to Vienna at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Răzvan Popovici, the Executive Director of the Sonoro Association, stated, "What is extraordinary is that we managed to draw from this theme and from this cultural richness of Vienna, which actually led to psychoanalysis and was the most fertile territory for Freud and the entire psychoanalytic movement. It was extremely important for our inspiration." He also spoke about the therapeutic dimension of music and art in general: "Each concert invites you to explore a bit of the human soul, the adventures of the musicians because you know that we help the audience overcome an emotional hurdle. We are sometimes a good remedy for everyday problems because we open these universes and worlds, and the audience steps into them."

The festival's opening concert will take place on October 27th at the Bragadiru Palace in Bucharest and will be performed by the Janoska Ensemble. The musical events have suggestive titles related to this year's theme. Thus, on October 29th, the "Fairytale Therapy" event will take place at the Museum of Recent Art (MARe). At that moment, the "Picasso Effect" exhibition will also be open, the most important event dedicated to the Spanish artist in Romania, including 46 works by the Spanish artist and 50 by Romanian artists inspired by him. Musicians will perform works at MARe such as Edward Grieg's "Elf Dance" for solo piano and Leos Janacek's "Pohadka / Fairy Tale" for cello and piano. On October 29th, at Club Expirat, there will be "Exposure Therapy," where musicians are invited to relive their traumas or adrenaline-filled adventures on concert stages in front of the audience, whose participation, according to the organizers, is "essential."

The event on November 1st in the Royal Living Room of the National Art Museum is called "Breaking the Tabu" and begins with Edward Grieg's "Morning" from "Peer Gynt" for piano, four hands. The second half of the concert is dedicated to the works of Richard Wagner, such as "Albumblatt & Träume (Album Page and Dreams)" for violin and piano and "Siegfried's Idyll" for sextet with piano. The SoNoRo series of events begins in Cluj-Napoca on November 6th at the "Casino" Urban Culture Center with the concert "Alchemy of Memory" and ends with "Exposure Therapy" on November 11th. Subscriptions for the SoNoRo edition in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca can be purchased as "early bird" tickets, sold at a discounted rate for a limited time. Prices range from 662 lei to 806 lei for Bucharest and 460 lei to 482 lei for Cluj-Napoca.