General Manager of the George Enescu Philharmonic
Since 2022, the General Manager of the George Enescu Philharmonic has been cellist Marin Cazacu, who won the competition for the post held by the Ministry of Culture.
Marin Cazacu studied cello at the Dinu Lipatti Music Lycée, Bucharest, and then at the Ciprian Porumbescu State Conservatory. His teachers included the renowned Serafim Antropov and Aurel Niculescu. He took advanced courses in Weimar, studying under Mezö Lászlo. Marin Cazacu has been the winner of international cello competitions held in Geneva, Markneukirchen, Leipzig, Bologna, and Belgrade.
From 1983 onwards, he was a concert soloist with the George Enescu Philharmonic and appeared in concert extensively, not only in Romania but also in Europe, Asia, and the two Americas, under the baton of major conductors who included Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Sergiu Comissiona, Cristian Mandeal, Lu Jia, Nanse Gum, Horia Andreescu, Antoni Ros Marba, Mendi Rodan, Misha Katz, and Jean Périsson. He played in various chamber ensembles alongside prestigious musicians such as Valentin Gheorghiu, Vladimir Orlov, Radu Aldulescu, Viktor Tretiakov, Ilia Grubert, Mihaela Martin, Mirel Iancovici, Silvia Marcovici, and Jeremy Menuhin, as a member of the Pro Arte Trio and the Voces Quartet. His name has received top billing at major festivals in Berlin, Bratislava, Bucharest, Hong Kong, Macao, Munich, Milan, Mateus, Osaka, Singapore, Seoul, Sofia, Tokyo, Valencia, and Venice. Marin Cazacu plays a Lorenzo Ventapane cello made in 1820.
Marin Cazacu has taught at the National University of Music Bucharest since 1992, and his students have gone on to forge successful concert careers in Romania and internationally.
In 1998, he founded the Cellissimo quartet along with Alexandra Guțu, Răzvan Suma, and Olga Mănescu, and with his students, he gives recitals and tours with ensembles of from eight to twenty cellists, under the name Violoncellissimo, but he also once achieved a record of one hundred cellists performing together on stage at the same time.
In 1999, Marin Cazacu founded the Enescu and the Music of the World International Festival, which is held every summer in Sinaia, on the eve of the anniversary of the great composer’s birth, which was on 19 August 1881. For organizing this festival and founding the first national youth orchestra (the Romanian Youth Orchestra, conducted by Cristian Mandeal), he has received numerous awards, including the Actualitatea Muzicală award, the Radio Romania Cultural Award, the Constantin Brâncoveanu Award, the Oamenii Timpului Award. In 2006, he received the title of Doctor of Music, Summa cum Laude, in 2017, the Star of Italy, and in 2019, the National Order of Merit, to the rank of Chevalier, an honor bestowed by the President of Romania.
His recordings for Electrecord, Olympia, BMG, Casa Radio, and AIX Records stand as testimony to the qualities of this ‘excellent musician,’ as Gennady Rozhdestvensky has called him. His concert appearances everywhere garner enthusiastic praise from audiences and the press alike.
Since 2008, he has developed the National Youth Orchestras of Romania project, which to date includes the Romanian Youth Orchestra, the Romanian National Symphonic Orchestra, the Sinfonietta Orchestra, and the Junior Orchestra. From 2014 to 2022 he was manager of the Tinerimea Română National Centre of the Arts and a member of the management of the European Federation of National Youth Orchestras.
