Concert "The Passion of the Lord"

Concert “The Passion of the Lord”

“The Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” is an oratorio inspired from the biblical text of the four Gospels, written by Paul Constantinescu (1909-1963), one of the most remarkable Romanian composers of all time. The vocal-symphonic work recounts and describes in a profound way the passions and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, offered as a sacrifice on Calvary for our sins.

Moreover, this composition gloriously captures the resurrection of Christ, His supremacy over death and sin, and His victory over them with glory and power. The narrative moments of the biblical text are interrupted by fascinating choral moments of response to the biblical narrative; they are meditative or dramatic moments that create the appropriate framework for the inner evaluation of the listener.

The work was composed in 1948. Due to the communist regime, the current version of the oratorio could not be interpreted in Romania until after the fall of the regime in December 1989. Although it was translated into German and performed on several occasions by orchestras from the former German Democratic Republic in the ’80s, the first Romanian audition of the oratorio only took place in 1990 at the Romanian Athenaeum, conducted by Cristian Mandeal.

The CONSONANTIS Orchestra from Cluj-Napoca consists of 58 members. This orchestra is an initiative to promote Romanian Christian music; the people were carefully selected on the criteria of seriousness in Christian living and testimony. It is made up of young evangelical Christians, professional musicians. The CONSONANTIS Symphony Orchestra debuted in November 2016 at the Auditorium Maximum Hall in Cluj-Napoca with a program of vocal-symphonic interpretation of Nicolae Moldoveanu’s pieces. We preferred this Christian music orchestra to secular orchestras, wanting to encourage its visibility, activity, and functioning for the promotion of Romanian Christian music.

We want the Gospel message to be proclaimed through quality Romanian music. Planned for April 29th, this concert is a special opportunity to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We also want to encourage initiatives to set up new bands of young Christians, professional musicians. The Consonantis orchestra is one of them.

We promote, in this context, a Romanian masterpiece rarely interpreted due to the wide set of interpreters it requires, exposing it to an audience that needs openness to the Romanian spiritual values that are either poorly promoted, or still unexplored.

It is remarkable that the three choral bands involved in this event, totaling over 60 young choristers, students and graduates, gathered from three different cultural centers of the country (Bucharest, Cluj, Oradea), decided to participate voluntarily.

The concert is part of the doctoral program of conductor Emanuel Bălăceanu, PhD student at the National University of Music in Bucharest and conducting professor at Emanuel University of Oradea, the Music department.

We wholeheartedly want this service to be a real worship to God, a way of reaching our fellow-people with the Gospel, but also a point of professional reference in the evangelical environment. We strongly believe that this event will be spiritual uplifting for every participant!

Conductor: