American Romanian Festival 2024/25 • Program Book 2 by Marian Tanau

The festival organizes an ongoing schedule of educational, cultural, and artistic events. Please check americanromanianfestival.org for future events as they get posted and join us for an upcoming event!

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Marian Tănău, President

Maureen D’Avanzo

Franz Herbert

Silviu Pala

Lori Runco

John Santeiu Jr.

THANK YOU

STAFF

Marian Tănău, President & Artistic Director

Joan Olkowski, Website & Design

Lori Newman, Operations

Monica Swartout-Bebow—Artistic & Executive Director, Kerrytown Concert House

Leah Celebi—Vice President of Community Engagement & Programming, The War Memorial

Joan Olkowski—Website & Design

Lori Newman—Editing

Matthew Pons—Stage Department Head, Detroit Symphony Orchestra

The Santeiu Family

Joachim Stepniewski—Video & Photography

Jennifer Tănău

Into the Shadows

CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT

Friday, January 31, 2025 / 7:30 p.m.

Kerrytown Concert House

415 N 4th Ave

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

ADMISSION ⁄ $18–$50

Admission: $29–$40; Student: $18–$30

ARTISTS

Heidi Han, violin

Marian Tănău, violin

Will Haapaniemi, viola

Jeremy Crosmer, cello

Zhihua Tang, piano

The American Romanian Festival celebrates its 20th-anniversary season with an evening of works centered

CONCERT PROGRAM

Ionică Pop (b. 1967)

Remembering Ţăranu (2024)

••• Commissioned by the American Romanian Festival. •••

George Crumb (1929–2022)

Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970)

I. Departure

1. THRENODY I: Night of the Electric Insects,

2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes

3. Lost Bells

4. Devil-music

5. Danse Macabre (Duo alternativo: Dies Irae)

II. Absence

6. Pavana Lachrymae (Der Tod und das Mädchen) (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)

7. THRENODY II: BLACK ANGELS!

around the subject of death. The recently commissioned piece by Ionică Pop, Remembering Ţăranu, employs a twelve-tone row, which also serves as a musical cryptogram to honor the recently deceased Romanian composer Cornel Ţăranu. George Crumb’s reaction to the horrors of the Vietnam War is expressed through his threnody, Black Angels. The work is structured around the numbers 13 and 7, numerals often related to fate and destiny, and several tonal musical quotations can be found throughout the piece, including snippets from our next work on the program, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet. Written in 1824, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” was the composer’s coming to terms with his long-term illness and impending death, and has been called “one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire.” ❖

8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)

9. Lost Bells (Echo) (Duo alternativo: Sounds of Bones and Flutes)

III. Return

10. [Solo: Aria accompagnata] God-music

11. Ancient Voices

12. Ancient Voices (Echo)

13. THRENODY III: Night of the Electric Insects

- INTERMISSION -

Franz Schubert (1787–1828)

String Quartet No. 14 in d minor, D 810, “Death and the Maiden” (1824)

I. Allegro

II. Andante con moto

III. Scherzo – Allegro molto

IV. Presto

CONCERT & CONVERSATION.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE, THE STEARNS COLLECTION, & THE AMERICAN ROMANIAN FESTIVAL PRESENT

Romanian Resonance: A conversation and concert with Alexandru Șura, cimbalom, and Marian Tănău, Artistic Director, celebrating 20 years of the American Romanian Festival

CONCERT & CONVERSATION

Saturday, February 22, 2025, 3 p.m.

The Keene Theater (East Quadrangle)

701 East University Avenue

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

FREE ADMISSION

CONCERT PROGRAM

ARTISTS

Kyoko Kashiwagi, violin

Marian Tănău, violin

Eva Stern, viola

Katri Ervamaa, cello

Alexandru Şura, cimbalom

The American Romanian Festival celebrates its 20th-anniversary season with a wonderful collaboration with the University of Michigan Residential College and the Stearns Collection. The Lecture–Recital will feature Romanian folk tunes for cimbalom as well as other arrangements by virtuoso cimbalom player Alexandru Șura, who will also speak about the art of cimbalom playing. ❖

A selection of works for the cimbalom all arranged by Alexandru Șura, including:

Barbu Lăutaru Medley

J.S. Bach

“Badinerie” from Orchestral Suite No. 2 in b minor, BWV 1067

“Cimbalom Medley”

Theme and Variations on “La cules de cucuruz” (“Corn Harvest”)

Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 14 in c-sharp minor, Op. 27, “Moonlight Sonata”

I. Adagio sostenuto

Khachaturian

“Sabre Dance” from Gayane

Rimsky-Korsakov “Flight of the Bumblebee”

CONCERT

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE & THE AMERICAN ROMANIAN FESTIVAL PRESENT

Romanian Echoes

CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT

Sunday, February 23, 2025 / 7:30 p.m.

Kerrytown Concert House

415 N 4th Ave

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

ADMISSION ⁄ $18–$50

Admission: $29–$40; Student: $18–$30

ARTISTS

Jennifer Goltz, soprano

Kyoko Kashiwagi, violin

Marian Tănău, violin

Eva Stern, viola

Katri Ervamaa, cello

Alexandru Șura, cimbalom

Naki Sung Kripfgans, piano

CONCERT PROGRAM

Felicia Donceanu (1931–2022)

“Cu Penetul”

“La mijloc de codru des”

(Text by Mihai Eminescu)

Donceanu

“Coşarul alb”

“Nici nu-ţi pasă”

“Noaptea”

(Text by Tudor Arghezi)

Donceanu

“Paşii”

(Text by George Călinescu)

Colin Martin (b. 1993)

Hammered Light for String Quartet & Cimbalom (2023)

arr. Alexandru Șura

“Cimbalom Medley”

The American Romanian Festival celebrates its 20th-anniversary season with an evening of unique music by Enescu and other Romanian composers. Also featured are works for cimbalom, including a recent commission by composer Colin Martin for string quartet and cimbalom. Enjoy an evening of lyrical lines, dynamic and punctuated rhythms, and Romanian flair. ❖

- INTERMISSION -

George Enescu (1881–1955)

Piano Quartet, No. 1, Op. 16 (1909)

I. Allegro moderato

II. Andante mesto

III. Vivace

Different Trains

CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT

Thursday, March 20, 2025 / 7 p.m.

Wasserman Projects

3434 Russell St, #502

Detroit, MI 48207

ADMISSION ⁄ $25

ARTISTS

Sujin Lim, violin

Marian Tănău, violin

Eva Stern, viola

David LeDoux, cello

Shannon Orme, clarinet

The American Romanian Festival celebrates its 20th-anniversary season with an evening of works centered around travel that’s sure to cure the wanderlust in us all. First on the program is a recently commissioned piece by Ionică Pop, Impresii din România, that reflects the joy of celebration and the need for human communion and peace through music. In The

Seven Dreams of Frida Kahlo for Clarinet and String Quartet, composer Ovidiu Marinescu takes us on an imaginary journey of dreams, from Mayan ritual dances to mariachi music to bebop jazz—which Frida Kahlo heard in New York in her travels with partner Diego Rivera—to an Arabic dream and pagan dance with Russian flair. Lastly, Steve Reich’s Different Trains for String Quartet and Pre-Recorded Performance Tape expresses the basic idea that carefully chosen speech recordings can generate musical materials for musical instruments. The piece is inspired by the composer’s childhood: When he was only 1 year old, Reich’s parents separated. His mother moved to Los Angeles while his father remained in New York. He traveled back and forth by train frequently between New York and Los Angeles from 1939 to 1942, accompanied by the governess. Different Trains is a reflection of Reich’s realization that as a Jew, had he been in Europe during those years, he easily could have been riding a very different kind of train. ❖

CONCERT PROGRAM

Ionică Pop (b. 1967)

Impresii din România (2024)

••• Commissioned by the American Romanian Festival. •••

Ovidiu Marinescu (b. 1965)

The Seven Dreams of Frida Kahlo for Clarinet and String Quartet (2023)

I. Prologue

II. New York

III. Mayan Ritual Dance

IV. Amor. Bésame—Homage to Consuelo Velasquez (1940)

V. Caravan

VI. Trotsky: Love, Death, and Punishment

VII. Black Angel

- INTERMISSION -

Steve Reich (b. 1936)

Different Trains for String Quartet and Pre-Recorded Performance Tape (1988)

I. America—Before the War

II. Europe—During the War

III. After the War (Played without pause)

ARTISTS

Jeremy Crosmer CELLO

Jeremy Crosmer is a remarkable young artist, both as a cellist and a composer. Crosmer completed multiple graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in cello, composition, and theory pedagogy, and received his DMA in 2012 at age 24. From 2012 to 2017, he served as the Assistant Principal cellist in the Grand Rapids Symphony, and he joined the DSO in May of 2017. He is the composer and arranger for the GRS Music for Health Initiative, which pairs symphonic musicians with music therapists to bring classical music to hospitals. In March of 2017, the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital launched a music channel that runs continuously, using four hours of meditative music composed by Crosmer and performed by musicians of the GRS.

Crosmer is a founding member of the modern music ensemble Latitude 49. He is also a current member of the band ESME, a duo that aims to broaden the education of classical music by bringing crossovers and mashups of pop and classical music to schools throughout Michigan. ESME released its first CD in December of 2016.

In April of 2013, Crosmer toured London with the Grand Valley State University Chamber Orchestra, performing the Boccherini Concerto No. 7 in G Major. He performed the Vivaldi Double Concerto with Alicia Eppinga and the GRS in March of 2016. While still in school, Crosmer was awarded the prestigious Theodore Presser Graduate Music Award to publish, record, and perform his Crosmer-Popper duets. He recorded the

duets with Julie Albers, and both sheet music and CD are available online.

Crosmer has taught music theory, precalculus, and cello at universities across Michigan. He draws mazes, writes science fiction, and plays good old country fiddle in his spare time. ❖

ARTISTS.

Katri Ervamaa

CELLO

Finnish-born cellist Katri Ervamaa, Doctor of Musical Arts, is a multifaceted performer with a special focus in chamber music, new music, and creative improvisation. She has performed and given master classes throughout North America, Europe, and Taiwan. Her festival appearances include the Orlando, Kuhmo, Bowdoin, Lyckå, and Norrtäjle Chamber Music Festivals (with the Finnish Owla String Quartet), as well as the Denison University Tutti! New Music Festival, Poison City Music Festival, Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, and Finnfest, among others. She has also performed at Ann Arbor’s Edgefest with Lars Hollmer’s Global Home Project, Guy Kluscevic, Mark Kirschenmann, E3Q, Andrew Bishop, and Ed Sarath. Katri studied cello with Erling Blöndal Bengtsson and Marc Johnson in the U.S., and chamber music with the Amadeus, Borodin, and Vermeer Quartets, among others. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan.

Katri is a founding member and past president of Brave New Works new music ensemble, the Muse Ensemble, and E3Q, an improvisation-based genre-defying trio of cello, trumpet, and percussion, as well as the Järnefelt Piano Trio. She appears on Envoy Recordings, Block M Records, and AMP Records labels. She appears in the documentary Mestiza Music, produced by WFYI-Indianapolis and broadcast on 60 PBS stations nationwide, and most recently on the Brave New Works record The Outer Bar.

In addition to her lively performance career, Dr. Ervamaa is on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she is the head of the music program and teaches chamber music and musicianship. She has also been on the cello faculty at Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green State Universities. She plays on an 1868 HC Silvestre cello, and you can find them online at katrimusic.com. ❖

ARTISTS

Jennifer Goltz

Soprano Jennifer Goltz is known for her virtuosity, sensitivity, and vivid performances. Her collaboration with composer-pianist Logan Skelton spans nearly three decades, two continents, and numerous song cycles. Ms. Goltz is a founding member of Brave New Works; she has also appeared with Milwaukee-based Present Music in performances of Richard Ayres’ In the Alps and Michael Daugherty’s Labyrinth of Love. Her premiere and subsequent performances of John Berners’s unaccompanied monodrama Study on Peter have garnered international praise. At the invitation of the composer, she performed Luciano Berio’s Circles at the Salzburg Music Festival with members of Klangforum Wien. She has also appeared with New Music Detroit in their Strange and Beautiful Music Festival performance of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, at the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival performing her own chamber arrangements of Samuel Barber and Richard Strauss, and at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival in Stephen Rush’s Ulysses S. Grant: A Fluxkit Opera. She created the role of the god Pan in Kamran Ince’s opera Judgment of Midas (Naxos) and can be heard on Albany, Centaur, MSR Classics, AMP, and Blue Griffin Records. Her recording of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire and Brettl-lieder (MSR) with the Los Angelesbased ensemble Inauthentica was hailed by Gramophone as “captivating” and “brilliant … a voice full of subtle allure and sprightly energy.” In the early 2000s, she fronted the

Ann Arbor Klezmer band Into the Freylakh, with whom she released an eponymous CD and The Shape of Klez to Come. She can now be heard singing and playing accordion with Klezmephonic. Ms. Goltz has an M.M. in vocal performance and a Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Michigan, where she often performed the works of student and faculty composers. She currently teaches voice and humanities-based music courses at the University of Michigan Residential College. ❖

SOPRANO

ARTISTS.

Will Haapaniemi

Born in Los Angeles, Will Haapaniemi discovered his love for the violin at the age of 2, inspired by Itzhak Perlman’s performance on Sesame Street. From that early spark, his path was clear, though his time was also divided between passions such as Capoeira, dance, and training for his glider pilot license.

He credits much of his development to the guidance of his teachers. Yoko Takebe and Michael Gilbert of the New York Philharmonic, whom he studied with at the Manhattan School of Music, played a pivotal role in shaping his musicianship. During high school, he learned much from his teacher, the soloist Mark Kaplan, while also being the recipient of a scholarship to study with the legendary Ruggiero Ricci in Palm Springs. Will’s parents, cousin Paul Roby of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and his aunt were essential in supporting him throughout his journey.

In 2014, Will joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, performing alongside his wife, violinist Heidi Han. He remains active as a soloist with orchestras and as a chamber musician, frequently performing on both violin and viola. Outside of his musical life, Will loves the outdoors, spending his free time hiking, rock climbing, flying small planes, and skiing in the winter. ❖

Heidi Han VIOLIN

Heidi Han first began her violin studies with JaeKwang Song while attending Yewon School of Arts. When Heidi was 13, her family moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada, and she continued her studies with Robert Davidovici. While in Canada, she served the Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra as a concertmaster. Heidi received both her Bachelor’s degree and graduate performance diploma from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, earning the Peabody Merit Scholarship for both programs. Ms. Han is the first-prize winner in the Marbury Competition and was awarded the Josef Kaspar Award. Currently, Heidi plays with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a second violinist and lives in Troy, Michigan, where she enjoys great music making with her colleagues and her husband, Will Haapaniemi. ❖

ARTISTS

Kyoko Kashiwagi

Kyoko Kashiwagi is an avid chamber musician as well as an experienced orchestral player. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, and raised in Tokyo, she began taking violin lessons at an early age. By the time she finished elementary school, she had a modest dream of pursuing a career in music. She was accepted at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music where she studied with Koichiro Harada, the original first violinist of the famed Tokyo String Quartet. While attending school, she won the concerto competition and performed Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. Mr. Harada was an inspiring figure to Ms. Kashiwagi and with his encouragement, she decided to take an audition to study at The Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay, Joseph Fuchs, and Joel Smirnoff of The Juilliard String Quartet. There, she met her future colleagues and formed the Amernet String Quartet. As first violinist of the quartet, she led the group to win first prize at the Fifth Banff International String Quartet Competition (1995), Tokyo Music Competition (1995), and Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, among others. The Amernet Quartet studied with the Tokyo Quartet and members of the LaSalle Quartet at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music. They received multiple awards and performed throughout the United States, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, and Switzerland, and also have been invited to perform at Aspen, Newport, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Norfolk, Lucerne, and Lincoln

Center’s Mostly Mozart music festivals. After leaving the quartet, she moved to Michigan where she teaches privately and performs as a member of the Muse Ensemble as well as with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. ❖

VIOLIN

ARTISTS.

Dr. Naki Sung Kripfgans

PIANO

Dr. Naki Sung Kripfgans is a distinguished musician whose versatile career spans roles as a collaborative pianist, concert organist, recording artist, improviser, music educator, and choral conductor. Naki has performed internationally and regionally in North America, Europe, and Asia. Her recent performance highlights include “Chamber Music in the Age of Resistance,” which was selected and funded by the Arts Initiative Program at the University of Michigan in November 2023; a performance of Saint-Saëns’s “Organ Symphony” at Hill Auditorium in May 2024; serving as a clinician and conference organist at The Fellowship of Worship Artists’ Conference in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina; and working as a faculty collaborative pianist for the renowned Center Stage Strings Institute in summer of 2024.

Naki holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ (sacred music) and a Master’s degree in piano performance from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Northern Iowa. Throughout her academic and professional journey, she has been the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards for piano and organ performance. She won the 2015 UM Life Sciences Orchestra Concerto Competition, which led to her performing Poulenc’s Organ Concerto at Hill Auditorium in 2016. As a virtuoso improviser, she also won the Robert Glasgow Award for Organ Improvisation at the University of Michigan

in 2012 and served as a judge for the same competition in 2019. She was featured in an article series titled “Women in Improvisation” in the December 2020 issue of the American Guild of Organists magazine.

At the University of Michigan, Naki contributes as a faculty member in the music program at the Residential College and as a collaborative pianist in the string department at the School of Music, Theatre, & Dance. In addition, she brings her extensive expertise and experience to her devoted role as the director of music and organist at Bethlehem United Church of Christ in Ann Arbor. ❖

ARTISTS

David LeDoux

David LeDoux has appeared as a soloist with the Syracuse Symphony, the Skaneateles Festival Chamber Orchestra, the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Oklahoma State University Symphony, the Louisiana Sinfonietta, and the Mid-Texas Symphony.

LeDoux is an active and avid chamber musician, including many years with the Syracuse Society for New Music. As a committed private teacher, he spent 2012 as a cello instructor for Imagine Syracuse, a music program in an inner-city school which was modeled after the El Sistema program in Venezuela.

Previous professional engagements for David have included serving as principal cellist with the Baton Rouge (LA) Symphony, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Symphony, and the Louisiana Sinfonietta. Last summer, David returned to his faculty position with the Eastern Musical Festival in Greensboro, NC.

David and his wife currently reside in Madison Heights, and David includes among his hobbies reading, running, and movies. ❖

Sujin Lim

Orchestra as a section violinist in 2017.

Lim is a prizewinner in numerous national and international violin competitions, including the Lodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition (Italy), the Torun International Violin Competition (Poland), the Indianapolis Matinee Musical Scholarship Competition (United States), the Indiana University Sibelius Concerto Competition (United States), the Joongang Music Competition, and the Ewha Kyunghyang Competition (Korea).

Lim has appeared in recital and as a soloist throughout Korea, Europe, and the United States with the Romania Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Bacau, the Torun Symphony Orchestra, the Yeonsae University, and the Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, she is a member of the EM Trio in Korea and performed in chamber recitals at Yagi Studio, Jungdong Hall, KNUA hall, and Kumho Art Hall. Lim has also served as concertmaster in the Evansville Philharmonic, the Indiana University Symphony, the KNUA Symphony, and the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra. ❖

ARTISTS.

Ovidiu Marinescu

COMPOSER

Ovidiu Marinescu is internationally recognized as a cellist, composer, conductor, and educator. His compositions have been performed in Romania, China, Brazil, Bulgaria, Russia, Guatemala, Montenegro, and across the United States. Parma Recordings included I’m All Ears for solo cello on the album Moto Celeste and Rorrim No. 1, A Sort Essay on the album Through Glass. The piano trio The Journey is the centerpiece of the Navona Records album A Grand Journey, in a spectacular performance by Trio Casals. Marinescu has been composer-in-residence for the International Chamber Music Festival in Guatemala City and the 7th edition of the International String Encounters in Limeira, Brazil. His Concerto for Two Cellos, String, and Percussion was co-commissioned by seven orchestras in 2020 with funding from West Chester University. His recent clarinet quintet titled The Seven Dreams of Frida Kahlo is dedicated to renowned clarinetist Ricardo Morales and The Dali Quartet. Marinescu’s compositional style is eclectic, and his works are often inspired by ethnic music from around the world, such as in his recent orchestral work The Day I Started, which was premiered in May 2024 by the Westchester Chamber Soloists (NY) and uses Scandinavian tunes.

Marinescu has performed at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall (New York), the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Holywell Room in Oxford, and the Oriental Art Center in Shanghai,

and has appeared as soloist with the London Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, National Radio Orchestra of Romania, and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra; the Helena, Great Falls, Portsmouth, and Newark Symphonies; the Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Philharmonic, Limeira Symphony in Brazil, Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain, and the Sinfonietta Vidin (Bulgaria), and most of the professional orchestras in his native Romania. Marinescu has more than 25 album releases for Parma Recordings and Cambria. His MOTO series, developed with Parma Recordings, has premiered works by nearly fifty composers in both recordings and performance at Carnegie Hall.

Equally successful as a conductor, Marinescu has worked with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra in Moscow, the Chamber Orchestra of the Romanian National Radio, “New Russia” State Orchestra, the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, the Bacau, Craiova, Ploiesti, Botosani, Targu Mures, and Braşov Philharmonics in Romania, Filarmonica de Gaia in Portugal, Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain, the Helena, Newark, and Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestras in the U.S., as well as Vidin Sinfonietta in Bulgaria.

Marinescu is cello professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania as well as founder and Artistic Director of the International Musicians Academy. More information can be found at marinescu.com ❖

ARTISTS

Colin Martin COMPOSER

Colin Martin is a composer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. His music has been performed at the University of New Mexico’s Popejoy Hall, the American Romanian Festival, San Francisco’s Center for New Music, the University of Miami, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Conductor’s Institute at Bard College, and Middlebury College’s Mahaney Center for the Arts.

Colin’s work Songs from By Heart, which premiered with soprano Hannah Stephens and the New Mexico Philharmonic in 2022, was awarded Second Place in the American Prize for Orchestral Composition, Professional Division in 2023. His first evening-length ballet, on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, will premiere in April 2025 with the NMPhil and the New Mexico Ballet Company. Colin has also collaborated with such esteemed performers as pianists Olga Kern, Vladislav Kern, and Anna Dmytrenko, San Francisco Symphony principal trombone Tim Higgins, members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the American Romanian Festival, sopranos Winnie Nieh and Hannah Stephens, timpanist Douglas Cardwell, and conductors Roberto Minczuk and Grant Cooper, among others.

Colin has premiered his piano works as the soloist at the Southwest Piano Festival (swpianofestival.org) in Albuquerque, where

he serves as Vice President and composerin-residence.

Colin graduated with his M.M. in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2018, studying with David Garner. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in music with honors from Middlebury College in 2015, with minors in Spanish and Chinese. He has also studied composition with Su Lian Tan, piano with Diana Fanning and Maribeth Gunning, and percussion with Douglas Cardwell. A dedicated educator, Colin teaches piano, music theory, and composition, and has a passion for sharing his love and knowledge of music with the next generation of talented musicians. ❖

Shannon Orme

CLARINET

Shannon Orme was appointed bass clarinet of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2007. Prior to joining the DSO, she served as co-principal clarinet of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra in Japan. She has performed with numerous major domestic and international orchestras including the Grand Teton Music Festival, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and the World Orchestra for Peace. As a result of her commitment to the DSO’s outreach work, Orme was one of five musicians nationwide to receive the 2016 Ford Musician Award for Excellence in Community Service, sponsored by the Ford Motor Company Fund and the League of American Orchestras. Upon graduating from the Interlochen Arts Academy, Orme attended Northwestern University (BM) and the University of Southern California (MM). Her primary teachers include Jean Miller, Richard Hawkins, J. Lawrie Bloom, and Yehuda Gilad. Orme resides in Unadilla, Michigan, with her dog, Crank. ❖

Ionică Pop COMPOSER

Ioan (Ionică) Pop was born in Sîngeorz–Băi, Romania, on August 20, 1967. He studied oboe and piano at the Lyceum of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1977 to 1985. He continued with graduate studies in composition at the Gheorghe Dima Conservatory of Music in ClujNapoca from 1986 to 1991, under Professor Cornel Ţăranu, who directed his doctoral thesis, Tendencies and Structures in Today’s Music. Ionică obtained his Ph.D. in music in June 2004.

In 2006, Mr. Pop completed a diploma as Director of Musical Theatre at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca.

Currently, Mr. Pop is Associate Professor at the Department of Musicology of the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music. His works have been performed in prestigious festivals such as Cluj Musical Autumn, Cluj Modern, and George Enescu International Festival; at the George Enescu Museum in Bucharest; and in Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Israel, and the U.S. In recent years, he organized the Aurel Stroe Festival and Symposium from Buşteni, Romania.

Mr. Pop is interested in investigating the convergence between composition and direction in instrumental theatre, and also in original ways to compose for voice using his own poems as lyrics. ❖

Eva Stern

Violist Eva Stern wears many hats, including chamber musician, orchestral player, and movement educator. She is a member of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and has served on music school faculties including those of Eastern Michigan University, Bowling Green State University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Previously, she has been a member of the St. Louis Symphony and the Louisville Orchestra, and plays as a substitute musician with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Eva is a founding member of the Michigan-based Muse Ensemble, and has performed with chamber ensembles including the Chautauqua String Quartet, the Michigan Chamber Players, Chamber Music Ann Arbor, and the American Romanian Festival.

Eva is a Pilates teacher and Franklin Method educator. She specializes in working with musicians and teaches musician-focused movement classes and workshops across the country and online. You can learn more about her at fortemovement.com. ❖

Alexandru Şura

CIMBALOM

Born in 1980 in Kishinev, Moldova, the talented Alexandru Șura started studding piano at the ‘V. Poleacov’ school of music. Two years later he entered the cimbalom class at Ciprian Porumbescu High School. Since the age of 12, Alexandru has consistently won the top prize in various national and international competitions. At about this time he began to play with some of the most professional and prestigious orchestras in Romania and Moldova including the academic orchestras ‘JOC’ and ‘LAUTARII.’ Since having embarked upon his solo career he has given many concerts and recitals in concert halls such as the National Philharmonic (Moldova), Place des Arts (Canada) and has toured extensively including appearances in Canada, USA, Romania, Austria, Russia, Germany, Belarus, Israel, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Estonia, and Turkey. Alexandru has an impressive interpretive technique, and a sound with a rare finesse. He is emotional in everything he does. He is true and persuasive, always winning over the public with the expressiveness of his interpretation. His repertoire is rich and varied, ranging from traditional music, folk performances and classical music to works by contemporary composers.❖

Marian Tănău

VIOLIN

his musical education in his hometown of Timişoara in Romania. He graduated from Liceul de Muzica “Ion Vidu,” where he studied violin with Maria Cleşiu. He then left for the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca and the Conservatorul de Muzica “G. Dima,” where he earned an Artists Diploma. Later in the U.S., he earned a graduate degree from Bowling Green State University.

Tănău joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1995. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Romania and the U.S. and is an active chamber musician. In 2004, Tănău joined the violin faculty at Wayne State University. In 2005, he was awarded a sabbatical year and moved temporarily to Romania where he joined the music faculty at the National College of Art “Ion Vidu,” and the Music Conservatory of the West University from Timişoara. His recording of the Violin Sonata by Paul Paray, recorded for Grotto Productions, received praise from critics in the prestigious Strad, Gramophone, and Fanfare Magazines.

Marian Tănău is the founder and president of the American Romanian Festival Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote American and Romanian music and culture to audiences in the U.S. and Europe. Currently, he also serves as President & CEO of the New Mexico Philharmonic. ❖

Zhihua Tang

PIANO

ARTISTS.

Zhihua Tang is an associate professor in collaborative piano at the Michigan State University College of Music.

She has enjoyed an active performing career around the world and has been praised for her extraordinary versatility and profound artistry on the piano. Over the years, she has collaborated with some of today’s leading musicians, including violinists Joshua Bell, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yuval Yaron, Robert Chen, Yoonshin Song, Emmanuelle Boisvert, and Yuan-Qing Yu; cellists Robert deMaine and Haiye Ni; violist Mahoko Eguchi; flutists Maxim Rubtsov and Jeff Zook; bassist Alexander Hanna; and oboist Dwight Parry. Her chamber music partners have included numerous principal players from many major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, National, Detroit, and Dallas, among others. Since 2011, she has performed frequently with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in many of its concert series. In May 2013, she appeared at Carnegie Hall with the DSO under the direction of Leonard Slatkin as part of Carnegie Hall’s annual Spring for Music Festival.

Tang was the top prizewinner of the Beethoven Sonata Competition in Memphis, Tennessee, the Central Division of the MTNA Collegiate Artist Competition, and the Chopin Competition in Chicago. She has also received an honorable mention at the XII International

ARTISTS

Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with many orchestras on different continents, including the Detroit Civic Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Ballet Orchestra, and Shanghai Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra. In 2013, her performance of the Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto with the Detroit Civic Orchestra at Detroit Orchestra Hall was broadcast live on the Detroit radio station WRCJ. As a recitalist, she has performed extensively across Europe, the U.S., and Asia in major music venues such as Bösendorfer Hall in Vienna, Rackham Hall in Ann Arbor, Detroit Orchestra Hall, Beijing Zhongshan Music Hall, and the Shanghai Centre Theatre.

She has held teaching positions at Alma College, Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, University of North Dakota, and Summer Music Camp at Bowling Green State University. As an avid advocate for music in the community, she has worked as a chamber music coach in the Detroit Civic Youth Ensemble, one of the premier youth music organizations in the country. She has been frequently invited to give performances and master classes throughout the United States and China.

A native of Shanghai, China, Tang began her piano studies at the age of 5 with her father. She attended the Shanghai Conservatory, where she was a recipient of the Fei Minyi Fellowship and the Shen Xingong Scholarship. She received her Master of Music degree from Indiana University as a scholarship student of Menahem Pressler. She later completed her DMA degree at the Michigan State University College of Music under the tutelage of Deborah Moriarty. She has also worked with important pedagogues, including Paul Badura-Skoda,

Russell Sherman, Joseph Kalichstein, John Perry, Anton Kuerti, Martin Katz, Janos Starker, Elly Ameling, and Pamela Frank. Additionally, she has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, the Banff Music Festival, the Orford Music Center, and the Gilmore Piano Festival.❖

GEORGE CRUMB

Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970)

PROGRAM NOTES BY DAVID B. LEVY

American composer George [Henry] Crumb [Jr.] was born on October 24, 1929, in Charleston, West Virginia, and died in Media, Pennsylvania, on February 6, 2022. The son of musicians (both parents were members of the West Virginia Symphony), Crumb grew up in an environment filled with classical and romantic music, as well as music composed by early twentiethcentury masters. He received training in composition at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts (University of Charleston), the University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan. His favorite composers included Mahler, Debussy, and Bartók, but his own music frequently quoted music by Bach, Chopin, Schubert, and Richard Strauss, and others, always with a specific dramatic or programmatic goal in mind. His Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970, published 1971) is one such piece, quoting a part of Schubert’s lied “Tod und das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”). Schubert himself used this theme in the variation movement of his String Quartet in d minor. Crumb was the recipient of several prestigious grants, as well as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music (1968). Black Angels is Crumb’s reaction to the horrors of the Vietnam War. It was commissioned by the University of Michigan and was first performed by the Stanley Quartet in October 1970. An inscription in the score reads “Finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli), the parenthetical translating to “in time of war.” In addition to their amplified instruments, the performers are required to play crystal glasses, maracas, suspended

PROGRAM NOTES.

tam-tam, and gong, as well as using their voices to produce phonemes and reciting numbers in a variety of languages.

George Crumb was a composer who was at once conscious of the tradition of concert music to which he belonged, as well as the social issues of his day. Many of his works made use of texts by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, most notably Ancient Voices of Children (1970). This work, and many others, makes use of theatrical effects and lighting. According to Crumb’s own program notes, Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land) is a “parable on our troubled contemporary world.” The work is rife with multiple layers of symbolism, part of which is numerological (7 and 13). The interval of the tritone, known as “the devil in music” (diabolus in musica) in the Middle Ages, plays an important role throughout the piece. In addition to the Schubert quotation, Crumb also alludes to the medieval Latin chant “Dies irae” that is the sequence in the Catholic Mass for the Dead. This tune was also used to great effect by Berlioz in his Symphonie fantastique and by Rachmaninoff in several of his works. Crumb also opens the work with a movement titled “Night of the Electric Insects”—a clear reference to a (non-electric) effect found in some music by Bartók.

While Black Angels is linked specifically to the composer’s response to the Vietnam War, its dramatic message is timeless. In writing the words in tempore belli (in time of war), for example, Crumb was doubtlessly aware of the title of Joseph Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli (Mass in Time of War) of 1796. Crumb described the structure of Black Angels as a “huge arch-like design” portraying “a voyage of the soul [in three stages] being “Departure (fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation) and Return (redemption).” Even here, Crumb was surely thinking of the three movements

PROGRAM NOTES

of Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano, Op. 81a (“Lebewohl” or “Les Adieux”), whose three movements are labeled Departure, Absence, and Return. While much of the piece is harsh and angular, the use of tonal quotations provides a helpful anchor for the listener. ❖

FELICIA DONCEANU

PROGRAM NOTES BY MARIAN TĂNĂU

Felicia Donceanu was a prolific Romanian composer. She was born in the city of Bacău, Romania, in 1931 and died in 2022 in Drăgoești, Romania, at the age of 90. She studied composition at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservaotry with renowned Romanian composer Mihail Jora. After she finished conservatory, she worked as a music editor, and in 1966 devoted herself fully to composition. Most of her music is a combination of music influenced by folk music from Romania but presented in modern compositional language.

The songs “Cu penetul” and “La mijloc de codru des” are based on two poems by celebrated Romanian romantic poet Mihai Eminescu, “Cu penetul ca sideful” (With Plumage as Nacre) and “La mijloc de codru des” (In the Middle of Dense Woods). Both poems are idyllic and descriptive of nature.

The songs “Coşarul alb,“ (The White Riper), “Nici nu-ţi pasă,”(You Don’t Even Care), and “Noaptea” (Night) are based on poems by Tudor Arghezi, a Romanian poet who is recognized for the development of poetry and literature for children.

The song “Paşii” (Steps) is composed on text by George Calinescu, a Romanian literary critic, novelist, and journalist, who is currently considered one of the most prominent literary critics and personalities in Romanian literature.❖

GEORGE ENESCU

Piano Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 16 (1909)

PROGRAM NOTES BY MARIAN TĂNĂU

Enescu completed his Piano Quartet No. 1 in 1909, and it premiered on December 18 of the same year in Paris alongside his String Octet as part of the series Soirées d’Art. The score is dedicated to Madame Ephrussi, the wife of Michel Ephrussi, a banker, oil investor, and aviation supporter in Paris. The work’s first movement was composed in the town of Sinaia, Romania, and the other two movements were composed in Paris.

The work is written in the standard three-movement sonata archetype. The first movement is in sonata form and states the opening theme in unison, where all the instruments play the same pitch. This is a technique often used by Enescu in many of his compositions. The second movement is full of expression through a song form in which the two themes make use of tritones and eighth-note scales. The last movement, also composed in sonata form, is in a minor key, and it drives into a finale feel through punctuated rhythms and scherzo-like features.

The Piano Quartet No. 1 was performed only three times during Enescu’s life, and it wasn’t published until 1965, decades after its composition and years after the composer’s passing.❖

OVIDIU MARINESCU

The Seven Dreams of Frida Kahlo for Clarinet and String Quartet (2023)

PROGRAM NOTES BY MARIAN TĂNĂU

American Romanian composer Ovidiu Marinescu completed The Seven Dreams of

Frida Kahlo in 2023. The world premiere of the work was earlier this season at the War Memorial, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, as part of the opening concert of the 20th-anniversay season of the American Romanian Festival. It was performed by Sujin Lim and Marian Tănău, violins; Eva Stern, viola; David LeDoux, cello; and Shannon Orme, clarinet.

Inspired by the iconic figure of Frida Kahlo in the world of art, as well as her being a symbol of feminine power and creativity, Ovidiu Marinescu takes us on an imaginary journey of dreams, from Mayan ritual dances to mariachi music to bebop jazz—which Frida Kahlo heard in New York in her travels with partner Diego Rivera—to an Arabic dream and pagan dance with Russian flair. ❖

COLIN

MARTIN (B. 1993)

Hammered Light

COMPOSER NOTES

Hammered Light is an exploration of the concept of light and how to create it through music. Through the use of register, timbre, and harmony, the piece shifts through various stages of light, from more active, rhythmically propulsive music to calmer, static states that shimmer through the use of string harmonics. It is also an attempt to craft a work for the cimbalom that explores its melodic, percussive, and timbral possibilities outside of the instrument’s traditional use in folk music.

The piece is in a symmetrical form, with a buoyant opening section that features pizzicato strings interspersed with cimbalom hits, eventually giving way to a flowing, contrapuntal section. The music fades into long, sustained chords of string harmonics that support a cimbalom cadenza. This section eventually activates before suddenly

falling back into the contrapuntal material, which gives way to the opening material before suddenly and unexpectedly shifting back into the string harmonics, ending the work by fading away into nothing. ❖

IONICĂ POP

Remembering Ţăranu (2024)

PROGRAM NOTES BY IONICĂ POP AND LORI NEWMAN

Remembering Ţăranu was commissioned by the American Romanian Festival after the death of Romanian composer, musicologist, and conductor Cornel Ţăranu in 2023. The work is written for string quartet and piano and employs a twelve-tone row, which also serves as a musical cryptogram, as the unifying feature. Pop uses Ţăranu’s full name in the cryptogram as follows:

C-do, O-do#, R-re, N-fa#, E-mib, L-labb; U(t)-do4b, N-to, A-fa, R-re2#, Ă-la#, T-dob, with “Ţăranu” musically spelled in retrograde as “unarăŢ.” Juxtaposed with the incredible structure a twelve-tone work requires is the free implementation of several musical quotations. Among them is the children’s song “Ţăranu e pe câmp” (“The Peasant Is in the Field”). The inclusion of a song that includes “Ţăranu” in its title is doubly meaningful, as this song was also a favorite of Ţăranu’s daughter, Cristina, when she was a child. Other quotations used by the composer include Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, a Romanian “Happy Birthday” song, “O Tannenbaum,” Ţăranu’s Remembering Bartók, and the opening rhythm of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The middle of the work is aleatoric and improvisatory in nature, so that no two performances will ever be the same. ❖

PROGRAM NOTES

IONICĂ POP

Impresii din România (2024)

COMPOSER NOTES, ADAPTED TO ENGLISH BY MARIAN TĂNĂU

The work for string quartet, Impresii din România, was composed due to my friendship with Marian Tănău, President of the American Romanian Festival. He commissioned this work and performed the world premiere performance of it on October, 13, 2024, at the War Memorial, Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The work is dedicated to the musicians who performed the premiere: Marian Tănău and Sujin Lim, violins; Eva Stern, viola; and David LeDoux, cello.

Impresii din România can be seen as a radiography of the Romanian archaic village and identity. The starting point of the composition is an old Romanian carol titled “Trei păcurărei” (Three Shepherds), which expresses the noble soul of the Romanian people and the special reverence toward death. We can observe that death in the eyes of the shepherds is seen with nobility, like a wedding where the soul, after death, is married with nature and the entire universe.

Iar la nunta mea, A căzut o stea, Soarele şi luna, Mi-au ţinut cununa, Brazi şi păltinaşi, Iei mi-or fost nuntaşi.

And at my wedding, A star fell,

The Sun and the Moon held my wedding crown, And the trees were my wedding party. The theme of this carol appears again and again, reminiscent of rondo form.

Alongside this carol, two other carols are introduced: “Joi de dimineaţă” (On Thursday Morning) is a carol of a young hunter, and “Coborât-o coborât” (Coming down, Coming Down) is a carol that I had the honor and privilege to discover in Hunedoara, Romania, alongside Ioan Bocşa around 1995. This carol talks about the adventures of the Virgin Mary on Earth, in search of a place where she can give birth to Jesus Christ. More tunes are present in passing, such as a quotation from Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the children’s song “Mary Had a Little Lamb, and a well-known Hungarian czardas.

The work also includes a cryptogram on the names Marian and Jennifer (Marian’s lovely wife), the second one in an inverted manner, by assigning the letters of these names to musical notes as follows:

M-mi, A-a, R-re, I-si#, A-a, N-rest and Jennifer inverted as “refinneJ” R-re, E-e, F-f, I-si, N-rest, N-rest, E-e, J-b. This way, I was able to unify a piece composed in traditional style, with echoes of modal music, as well as elements of modern music with techniques such as harmonics, note clusters, and sul ponticello effects. ❖

STEVE REICH

Different Trains for String Quartet and PreRecorded Performance Tape (1988)

COMPOSER NOTES

Different Trains for String Quartet and PreRecorded Performance Tape begins a new way of composing that has its roots in my early tape pieces It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966). The basic idea is that carefully chosen speech recordings generate the musical materials for musical instruments.

The idea for the piece came from my childhood. When I was 1 year old, my parents separated. My singer-songwriter mother moved to Los Angeles, and my attorney father stayed in New York. Since they arranged divided custody, I traveled back and forth by train frequently between New York and Los Angeles from 1939 to 1942, accompanied by my governess. While the trips were exciting and romantic at the time, I now look back and think that, if I had been in Europe during this period, as a Jew, I would have had to ride very different trains. With this in mind, I wanted to make a piece that would accurately reflect the whole situation. In order to prepare the tape, I did the following:

1. Record my governess, Virginia, then in her seventies, reminiscing about our train trips together.

2. Record a retired Pullman porter, Lawrence Davis, then in his eighties, who used to ride lines between New York and Los Angeles, reminiscing about his life.

3. Collect recordings of Holocaust survivors Rachella, Paul, and Rachel, all about my age and then living in America—speaking of their experiences.

4. Collect recorded American and European train sounds of the ’30s and ’40s.

In order to combine the taped speech with the string instruments, I selected small speech samples that are more or less clearly pitched, and then notated them as accurately as possible in musical notation. The strings then literally imitate that speech melody. The speech samples as well as the train sounds were transferred to tape with the use of sampling keyboards and a computer. Three separate string quartets are also added to the pre-recorded tape

and the final live quartet part is added in performance.

Different Trains is in three movements (played without pause), although that term is stretched here since tempos change frequently in each movement. They are:

1. America—Before the War

2. Europe—During the War

3. After the War

The piece thus presents both a documentary and a musical reality and begins a new musical direction. It is a direction that I expect will lead to a new kind of documentary music video theatre in the not-too-distant future. ❖

FRANZ SCHUBERT

String Quartet No. 14 in d minor, D 810, “Death and the Maiden” (1824)

PROGRAM

NOTES BY MARIAN TĂNĂU

The String Quartet No. 14 in d minor was completed by Franz Schubert in 1824 after a serious illness, which brought the composer to the realization that he was going to die. The work was premiered in a private home and was published three years after Schubert’s passing. The name “Death and the Maiden” comes from a song Schubert composed a few years earlier on a poem with the same name by German poet Matthias Claudius. The song is recycled as the theme of the second movement of the piece. Here are the words of Matthias Claudius, which inspired Schubert to write the lied and later the String Quartet and as translated by P. Jurgenson in 1920.

PROGRAM NOTES

The Maiden:

“Oh! leave me! Prithee, leave me! thou grisly man of bone! For life is sweet, is pleasant. Go! leave me now alone! Go! leave me now alone!”

Death:

“Give me thy hand, oh! maiden fair to see, For I’m a friend, hath ne’er distress’d thee. Take courage now, and very soon Within mine arms shalt softly rest thee!”

The work has four movements, and they are unified throughout by sets of repeating triplets throughout all movements. The sudden dynamic changes from extremely loud (ff) to extremely soft (pp), create a menacing and unsettled state. This state of danger to come and fear is presented in the opening of the first movement, where all four instruments play in unison, presenting the dawn of the triplet motif followed by a peaceful chorale performed very softly. Schubert continues the drive of the triplets throughout the entire first movement, intercalated with lyrical, peaceful moments. The second movement states the theme through the rhythm of a funeral march indicated by the long-short-short rhythm characteristic of this type of music. The composer develops the theme through five variations, after which the theme of the funeral march is stated again, but in a major key, producing a state of resignation. The third movement Scherzo reminds the listener of a fiery, diabolic dance with its fast tempo and syncopated rhythms. It is followed by a lyrical and peaceful trio after which the Scherzo is stated again finishing the movement, which is a bridge to the last galloping, virtuoso, fast-paced finale. ❖

Strategies For Wise Giving Plan

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Based on presentations by professional financial advisors, here are some strategies for giving wisely, following recent changes in the tax law. The advisors identified five strategies that make great sense. Here they are in brief:

GIVE CASH:

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HIGH-INCOME YEARS:

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BE PROACTIVE:

Consult your own financial advisor to help you implement any of these.

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American Romanian Festival Inc. PO Box 4352

Ann Arbor, MI 48106 americanromanianfestival.org

MISSION

The American Romanian Festival Inc. is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster mutual understanding and promote American and Eastern European music and culture.

A specific focus of the festival is to encourage cultural awareness and understanding between people of culture, musicians, and artists of the United States and Romania. The festival organizes educational, cultural, and artistic events that take place in Romania and the USA. Founded in 2005, the organization supports cultural exchanges with Americans participating in events in Romania and Romanians participating in events in the USA.

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