［CITY］
Bucharest … Romania
［SCHEDULE］
2026：8.23 … 9.19
To the festival site ▷
It is not widely known that the country’s name actually comes from “Romania = land of the Romans,” and that at the same time it has a strong Italian heritage.
However, music fans know that the country has produced many international artists. Dinu Lipatti, Clara Haskil, Radu Lupu and Angela Gheorghiu…. And the first of these is George Enescu, a violinist and composer.
Enescu was born in Liveni in 1881 and died in Paris in 1955, after World War II. He studied in Vienna, then Paris, and from the mid-1920s onward, he made a name for himself as a violin teacher.
His students included Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Grumiaux, Christian Ferras, and Ivry Gitlis, all of whom became leading violinists of the 20th century.
At the same time, as a composer, he composed symphonies and sonatas. He is a national hero in Romania, and his portrait is even used on the 5-lei banknote.
The festival was founded in 1958 and is held every two years in September. The festival is named after him, and is a large scale music festival worthy of being the last of the summer music festivals in Europe.
It is known as one of the largest music festivals in Eastern Europe, if not the largest in Romania. Prestigious competitions (piano, violin, and composition) are also held during the festival.
The festival features concerts every day in halls such as the 4,000-seat palace hall “Sala Palatului” and the domed “Ateneul Roman”.
