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20 years ago, the great German conductor Kurt Masur, while he was the musical director of the French National Orchestra, was naming as head of the orchestra a young lady violinist, of only 21 years old.

Sarah Nemțanu thus became the youngest concert master in the history of the National French Orchestra, a position she still occupies today.

100% French on paper, Sarah bears a Romanian name – Nemțanu – and has a Romanian-beating heart especially when she visits Romania.

“The first time I came to Romania and I heard people speaking Romanian, I thought everyone was my cousin. (laughing) It was like all the family was there, that was my feeling. I felt home.”

Her story is not only one of an accomplished musician, who has conquered the world’s greatest stages, but also a testimony of a universal Europe, in which millions of families break, in need, from their homes and grow roots in other places, that adopt them and give them wings.

Vladimir Nemțanu, born in Bucharest into a Jewish family, was a concert master in the George Enescu Philharmonic, and his wife had just graduated from canto at the Conservatory when they decided to flee communist Romania, that was under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship.

They took advantage of The Most Favored Nation Clause, through which Ceaușescu allowed Romanian Jews to emigrate to Israel and The United States of America, and left for Israel themselves.

After a few months spent there, the two young Romanians were getting a chance in France. He got the position of concert master of the Bordeaux National Orchestra and she was hired at the Bordeaux Opera.

“When they got to France, they started a new life. They had nothing, they lived in a hotel for a while, until they rented an apartment. It really was starting from 0.

There were a few Romanians in the Bordeaux orchestra, there already was a cultural connection between Romania and France. And in the ’70’s, a lot of regional orchestras appeared. There were not so many French musicians, so they were completed by Romanian musicians.

Even to this day, the Romanian musicians communities in European orchestras are impressive. But especially in France, because there is this cultural friendship, there have been so many extraordinary Romanian artists who created in France, such as Ionesco, Enescu, Brâncuși.”

“It is the Latin side that binds Romania to France, our atoms intertwine.”

A year and a half after settling in Bordeaux, Sarah was born into the Nemțanu family.

“I’m the oldest of three children and first learned to speak Romanian at home. Then, when I went to school, French became my first language.

But I would say that until about the age of 12, at home I would speak Romanian. Especially when my grandparents were visiting, about a month every year, we would only speak Romanian. Also, my parents’ entourage was formed exclusively of Romanians.”

Although she was fairly young, Sarah vividly recalls her first visit to Romania.

“I went to Romania with my mother and sister when I was six, I have memories, but they are not nice. It was around 1987, my mother already had a French passport, but she was afraid that they wouldn’t let her get back to France, at the airport.

My memory is of my mother crying in panic. She was questioned: why are you married to a Jew? Why are you living in France and not here? I remember all the questions, it was something very violent for me.

Then, I remember it being cold, winter, a lot of snow. The only pleasant memory is riding the sleigh with my grandfather in Bucharest. That was cool!”

She pronounces the word “sleigh” (săniuță) perfectly in Romanian. More so, even though when we started the interview she said that she will be speaking French, because she does not manage speaking Romanian so well, Sarah mostly answers in the language that her parents taught her when she was a child.

As a child, information about Romania was vague, as it would have been for any other child to understand why her parents had to flee their own country.

“I have this memory of being in the car when Ceaușescu was executed, my mother stopped, turned up the volume and stood still. I knew that they had fled Romania because it was not good, but I didn’t understand why.

On the other hand, I was aware that they were happy in France, with a double culture, that they passed on to us, their children.”

Sarah and Deborah, her sister, took on their father’s passion for violin, while their brother became a jurist.

While Sarah leads the National French Orchestra, as a prime violinist, Deborah Nemțanu is, as well, concert master of the National Chamber Orchestra in Paris.

“I implored my father to teach me violin. He was very passionate, he would study a lot, and when we heard him play, we would run to him.

To me, the violin is like a voice. I’m trying to say something through music, through a universal language, without precise words. And people understand what it wants.

I can’t remember wanting to do anything else.

“The most wonderful thing that our father passed on was to be independent, self-critics, knowing on our own whether what we’re doing is right or not, listen to ourselves, without anyone else telling us that we were off-key.”

From 16, Sarah moved by herself in Paris, where she graduated from the Conservatory. And recently she was made a violin teacher at the prestigious school. She enjoys teaching the youth and says that she got this gift and this joy from her father.

She was also a violin teacher for Melanie Laurent, the actress, for the film Le Concert, directed by Radu Mihăileanu.

Sarah Nemțanu is the one playing the music in the film – Tchaikovsky’s concert for violin and orchestra – and had enormous success, along with the film. Le Monde were saying at the time: “Sarah Nemțanu, the true violinist from The Concert”.

“Radu is very precise, he knows exactly what he wants and what I loved was that he made the entire final scene of the film on the timed rhythm of Tchaikovsky’s concert, he first played the music and built the script based on the musicality of the work.

I had never seen that. Usually, in films, they add the music after the shoot.”

As a head of orchestra, she works directly with Christian Măcelaru, the Romanian musical director of the French National Orchestra. He believes her to be one of the finest violinists of the world, who could easily transition to a solo carrier.

But Sarah loves working in an orchestra and can not see herself doing anything else.

“I knew that I wanted to be a concert master. In my mind, I could’t see myself playing alone. My father was a concert master. When I finished school, I loved going to rehearsals when I knew that the orchestra was also there.

My life philosophy is that we all form a chain in which each is a link, we are very different, but only together we can form this chain.

When we will accept that each has his own personality, then everything will be alright. The main priority is the common good, that of the orchestra.

And I love the orchestra, I love the orchestra repertoire, and it shows and my colleagues see it.

I am both head of the orchestra, and part of it, I’m a crossroad that creates connections and this is owed mainly to my education.”

I ask her how many Romanians there are at the moment in the French National Orchestra and she effortlessly answers:

“- Oana, Teodor, Eduard, so 1,2,3,4.

– 3.

– 4, counting me.

– Do you count yourself?

– Of course. (laughs)”

With a Romanian conductor at the helm and a Romanian-born concert master, the French National Orchestra took on an important project, dedicated to the great Romanian composer George Enescu.

The entire work of Enescu will be recorded during the next 10 years at the prestigious record label Deutsche Grammophon.

“In Enescu’s music you can find images from his childhood, birds singing, a violinist playing on the street.

I believe that George Enescu wrote so that he would never forget his memories and did it in the smallest details regarding folklore.

It is, obviously, also classical composing, savant music. But in his music there is always this transparent veil of folklore, which he managed to integrate.

Romania is making all these great efforts to be a European country in all aspects and I believe that the artists are te first that succeed, artists are the first creating connections between countries. Enescu did this perfectly.

In his music there is a lot of freedom, but it is in a special frame, a deeply personal one. This is truly special at Enescu. And that is how I see freedom. We are free on this Earth, but we are also limited on this planet.”

Last year, Sarah Nemțanu opened the International George Enescu Festival, along with the George Enescu Philharmonic, which her father had led, 44 years prior, as a concert master.

And as of this year, Cristian Măcaleru took the helms of the festival as the artistic director. They both wish for a refreshing of the event, but also more attention to young Romanian musicians.

“The Enescu festival is truly impressive. What I find to be a shame is that there is but one such festival in Romania.”

“All the funding goes to one place. I wouldn’t see a single event once every two years and then nothing. And, as we mentioned the youth, if there were larger investments in the system, I would like to see professors from all over Europe teaching in Romania.

Sure, there is the Enescu Contest, but the stakes there are a prize. Who is helping the young artists for the rest of the year, who is teaching them?

At the Enescu Festival I’ve met wonderful young people, volunteers, staff. The youth want to learn, they are fascinated by the European educational system.

Unfortunately, there are many leaving. The best of the youth are leaving Romania.

Here is where I believe that the Enescu Festival with Cristian Măcelaru as an artistic director will bring changes.

It is an enormous hope. It is something I feel.”

Sarah lives in one of the most bohemian neighborhoods in Paris – Montmartre. She walks daily, on her way home, on the wavy streets that were once walked by the great European artists – Monet, Manet, Renoir, Picasso or Van Gogh, and is at home in the vivid atmosphere of the place filled with tourists, right next to the Sacre Coeur Cathedral.

She is the mother of two, a wife and an artist who enjoys live through everything she does. She loves cooking, jogging with her husband and traveling. She lives a typical Parisian life, but equally loves each of her trips to Romania, which she sees as a fundamental part of her identity.

“I’ve went to Romania each of the last 6 years and every time I felt like home. It is something that cannot be explained, can only be felt.

I feel like home, I even took Georges there, my son.

Romania is at a European crossroad, it is a unique country through the fact that it is Latin in the east, and this gives it a special identity and in the same time it is a country of adaptability.

That is why I think many artists leave the country and are very evolved culturally.

And if we were to mention musical particularities, I think that the Romanian style has a certain elegance, something that my father absorbed and passed on.”

Sarah Nemțanu is the result of a family of Romanian migrants in France, in the same way as thousands of children are born in Romanian families overseas, and take on different paths than what their lives would have been, would their parents have stayed in Romania.

Art, in this case, has fundamentally contributed to the conservation of a cultural identity that Romanians carried along in their adoptive countries.

In a world where foul history repeats itself and millions of families are forced to flee from war or dictatorial regimes, Sarah is a believer in the good in everyone, and the power to bring a little light around us, be it through art, or through simple gestures.

“I believe that when you do good and are positive, there is an effect around you. For example, I have some friends that are constantly complaining about Paris taxi drivers, that they’re bad, this and that. I often take a taxi after concerts and I only meet wonderful taxi drivers, really nice.

Once I had a taxi driver that had came to see me at a concert. He was 50 years old and he listened to classical music on the radio, he had just enrolled in music school, to learn an instrument. I invited him to a concert, he came, waited for me at the end and cried.

To me, this is real life. If you do good, keep a positive attitude and don’t let all the negativity in the world influence you, than everything will be better.

***This story is part of the “France Week” series, a Cultura la Dubă project supported by BNP Paribas.

The post Sarah Nemțanu, outstanding French violinist, born from Romanian parents: “To me, the violin is like a voice. “ appeared first on Cultura la dubă.

Versiunea în ROMÂNĂ

“Welcome, Maestro!”

On the 24th of September 2020, Cristian Măcelaru held his first concert as a musical director of The French National Orchestra and was greeted with a welcome message written in romanian.

He reached that position after a democratic vote of the musicians in the orchestra, as rarely happens in the world of classical music. Thus, he was a conductor wanted by the members of the orchestra, not imposed upon them.

At the same time, Cristian Măcelaru is main conductor of the Köln Symphonic Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester, where his contract has been extended until 2025.

Apart from talent, his atypical philosophy regarding working with orchestras has made him stand out among the other conductors. He is playful and open to listen to questions and proposals from his musician collaborators. He does not impose himself through a tough attitude, but he earns the respect and sympathy of the orchestra through the respect that he shows, in his turn, to others.

“Music is made in an intimacy where it is necessary to have a spiritual connection.”

“Perhaps it was necessary in the 20th century that a conductor be severe, authoritarian, such as Celibidache was. But in Celibidache’s orchestra there wasn’t any woman. I could never do that because I respect the people that I work with and I depend on them to give me their best, not to spite me.”

“A concert where musicians play out of fear, to me, is worthless.

Cristian Măcelaru’s story begins in Timișoara, in a family of 10 children, him being the youngest.

“My father was a Mold Technician in a factory in Timișoara and refused to be a member of the Socialist Party, he was also very much involved with the church and didn’t accept telling on the others in church. The Secret Police would summon him weekly and he never accepted collaborating with them. He went through this horror his whole life, but he found a way to be happy – music.”

Through his passion for music, his father formed a church orchestra and guided each child to an instrument. The whole Măcelaru family played instruments, from children to cousins, but not all of them pursued a musical career.

“My father worked around the clock, you can imagine, for 10 children! Countless times he would come home tired, at 10 or 11 in the evening and the first thing he would ask was: have all the children studied today?”

“The one who hadn’t studied had to do it in front of my father. And he would sit and listen until he fell asleep on the chair. He knew that what you discover through music, nobody can take away. That’s the essence of my happiness, it’s not the career, it’s music.”

He is now profoundly grateful to his father for insisting that he studied the violin, the instrument that made him stand out at the start of his career.

In his turn, as a father, he tries to infuse his children with a love for art, whether it’s music, drawing or literature. His daughter, 8, plays the violin and his boy, 10, plays the piano. In every city they visit together, he takes them to museums and opens their eyes to the beauty of the world.

“A parent’s responsibility is not only to send your child to a good school. It is also to teach them to be curious.”

“I would encourage all parents to guide their children toward studying a musical instrument. I have never met a person who had learned to play a musical instrument and after 10 years say: I regret studying the piano!

On the contrary, I meet people every day telling me: I wish that my parents would have made me study more.”

His love for music, his talent, his hard work, but also chance have brought Cristian Măcelaru to where he is today.

When he was just 17, he met a family of americans that were in Timișoara to adopt a romainan child, and teen Cristi offered to show them around town. He even invited them to one of his concerts and they suggested that he went to a summer school in The US.

That’s how he ended up in Michigan and started the adventure that would change his life. Instead of enrolling in summer school, young Cristi accidentally filled out a form to enlist in a local high school. He later found out that he had received a study scholarship and, along with his family, decided to remain there.

As a violin player, he became the youngest concertmaster in the history of The Miami Symphony Orchestra, where he made his debut at Carnegie Hall at only 19.

But his greatest wish was to conduct. And his dream came true.

Cristian Măcelaru welcomed us in the impressive concert hall of Radio France, while recording a concert of the french composer Camille Saint – Saëns, with The French National Orchestra.

The slightest sound was not permitted during recording, but the breaks were full of jokes and smiles, unwinding the members of the orchestra.

The orchestra director said that on the stage he is 100% the same as he is in his free time and is not afraid that it will undermine his authority, on the contrary, it helps.

“Why did I make jokes today? Because what they had to play was so difficult and delicate, I helped them relax, so they played their best. Yesterday I didn’t make any jokes, it wasn’t necessary. (he smiles)”

He was supposed to take over The French National Orchestra in september 2021, but he did it a year earlier after his predecessor resigned. Then, the pandemic special context also changed the part he was going to play in Paris.

In the midst of last year’s crisis, musicians from The French Orchestra were allowed to retire sooner, at only 61. 30 of them chose retirement, and now the positions had to be filled by new musicians, which meant a reconstruction of the orchestra.

“It’s an opportunity for me, to leave my mark on the orchestra, but also for the orchestra, to have a younger feel.”

“The transition is very difficult. Out of a musical director’s duties, about 40% is conducting. Other than that, I’m responsible for every invited conductor, I chose the soloists, the entire repertoire, now it’s the case that I have to fill 30 positions in the orchestra. And every musician takes 3-4 days of auditions.”

The contests for the positions start with an eliminatory anonymous audition, where the contestants are listened to by the jury from behind the curtain. Behind Cristian Măcelaru, the second leader of the orchestra is concertmaster Sarah Nemțanu, the french violinist with romanian origins.

“There’s not an orchestra that I have conducted without some Romanians in it. Without them being some of the most respected.”

“We’ve got our first violin with her parents from Romania, now a girl just won the contest for a violin position, she’s born in Paris, but both her parents are from Romania. A boy who won the contest for the piccolo is from Romania, born in Târgu-Mureș, the second violin from the second line, a musician from Romania just retired, number 3 at viola is also from Romania.

There are talented people, dedicated, hard working. And Romania shouldn’t be proud of them, it should learn from them. That we have a majority that brings us fame, not a minority that brings us shame.”

When it comes to Romania, in the conductor’s speech you can sense both the attachment to “home”, as well as the bitter taste of the impossibility of doing something for his native country. A member of the European Union that unfortunately, follows dusty laws that slows it’s evolution.

“I say this with sadness: even if I wanted to return to Romania, to have a position similar to the one in Paris, I would not be allowed to!

There are so many imposed rules, that maybe 50 years ago made sense, but now are so absurde.”

“10 years ago, when I was assistant conductor at the Philadelphia Orchestra, I wanted to apply as a director at an orchestra from Romania. My dossier was rejected because I didn’t have a baccalaureate degree from Romania. I left when I was in high school, I haven’t equiveled my studies in Romania, I didn’t study in the Conservatory in Romania, I didn’t get my master’s degree in Romania, that , anyway, can be bought or passed through easily.

I had my master’s degree in The United States, at Rice University in Houston, where I would go to class daily, where I truly studied. When I occupied the position here, nobody asked me where I went to high school, what my diploma was. No. Everything was according to artistic merits.

That’s why at The George Enescu Philharmonic there are countless empty positions, there are absurd conditions. That’s the death of an orchestra. It’s a huge possibility for an orchestra to refresh itself, but if you don’t fill those positions, it’s death, it’s not a rebirth.”

Regardless, he comes back as a conductor every time he is invited to Romania and wishes to give back to his home country some of what he has learned abroad.

“Perhaps if I weren’t a musician, I would have been involved somehow in the romanian political scene, to try to make a change.”

“It’s very important that those who left Romania find a balance between criticizing and giving back. In the last 6-7 years, I’ve had a concert in Romania at least every two months. Do you think that I went to Bucharest to make money? Do you think  I went to Bucharest for the prestige? No.

I went for a single reason. I didn’t want to reach the end of my career and have someone tell me: maestro, why didn’t you do more? It’s simple. A forest doesn’t grow overnight. Someone must plant the seeds, water the ground, then wait years for the tree to grow. You have to do that to each tree, until there is a forest.”

“I come back to Romania oftenly because I can’t imagine keeping to myself what I have received. I can’t live in a world like that. Actually, Enescu says: in music or literature, something becomes your own only when you have given it to someone else.”

In fact, Enescu, a name that has left its mark on the history of classical music, continues to enrich Romania’s image in the world. The George Enescu International Festival is regarded as one of the most important cultural events in the world, according to the musical director of The French National Orchestra.

“People can’t conceive that this is what is actually happening: 3-4 concerts per day with the world’s greatest orchestras and greatest musicians and it’s happening in Bucharest! Not Vienna, Berlin, no. We’re talking about Bucharest.”

“The Enescu Festival in Bucharest is a real wonder.”

A wonder that deserves a concert hall to match. Unfortunately, the great orchestras invited to the Enescu Festival are playing at the Palace Hall, the former congress hall of the Romanian Communist Party. It is one of the pains felt by Cristian Măcelaru, whose name is mentioned to take over the management of the George Enescu Festival.

“What bothers me is that it hasn’t been understood that the benefits of a concert hall in Bucharest would not be only for those coming to the concert, but it would transform a whole city.

Look at what is happening at Elbphilharmonie, in Hamburg. There are millions of people travelling to Hamburg for that concert hall.

Just like The Eiffel Tower is built in Paris. Is the Eiffel Tower necessary? What is the Eiffel Tower good for? It defined not a city, but a whole nation. You can’t separate France from the Eiffel Tower.”

To us, a concert hall in Bucharest would define Romania. The benefits are not only cultural, there would be enormous private benefits. I still hope that this will happen in Bucharest. I hope it happens now. I want it to happen now!”

We wrap the interview at almost 10 p.m. After a work day started at 9 a.m. the maestro leads us into his personal cabin. That’s where we see his baton.

“I love this baton because it is very light. There’s nothing special about it, I bought it for about 20 euros in Japan, I have a set of 5 similar. But I never had to replace it, I’ve been using it for about 15 years.”

He packs his things and puts his backpack on, leaving like a regular person, tired at the end of a day’s work.

In an Airbnb apartment his wife and two children wait for him. He’s normally in Paris for only two weeks per month and is living in a hotel next to Radio France, but this time, given that he’s staying for a month with his family, he rented an apartment. They’re settled in Germany for now, that’s where the kids go to school, but he plans to move to Paris in a year.

He believes that destiny is “the gift that is given to us in order to handle what we’re facing” and that his blessing is to enjoy every moment of playing music.

“If I were to plan my career, I wouldn’t have done it so beautifully. The circumstances were such that everywhere, the exact right door opened.”

“I played concerts where there were more of us on the stage than there were people in the audience. I played that concert with the same passion as if there was a full house. Every chance to give your best is a chance to touch someone. And many of the doors that were open for me had to do with somebody being in the right place at the right time.”

At only 41, Cristian Măcelaru leads one of the world’s greatest orchestras and is the 3rd romanian winner of a Grammy award, following the conductor Christian Badea and the jazz piano player Marian Petrescu.

“I don’t find happiness in what is happening to me, I find it in what I do, because that’s the only way that I can be in control of my happiness.”

“I tell my students: if conducting is what fulfills you, quit conducting, because you will always be disappointed. There will always be a better conductor, a more successful one, more respected.

I try to find fulfillment in music, because music will never betray me.

If I search for it in a Beethoven piece, in the beauty of a Saint – Saëns work, that is where I find happiness and fulfillment, not in what comes back to me from conducting.

Conducting is my way of expression to the world, but what keeps me going is music, that’s what nobody can take away.”

***This story is part of the “France Week” series, a Cultura la Dubă project supported by BNP Paribas.

The post Cristian Măcelaru, the Romanian conductor who is rebuilding The French National Orchestra: “The essence of my happiness is music.” appeared first on Cultura la dubă.