Classix in Focus :: Guided Tour - Musical Tradition in Iași

The Iași.Travel Association, in partnership with the Destination Iași Association, is organizing a guided tour of the historic center of Iași during the Classix Festival 2023. The guide will be Mihai Bulai, president of Destination IAȘI.

The tour will be conducted in English if there is at least one foreign participant in the group.

The meeting point will be Unirii Square, in front of the statue of Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza. This is the place where Romania was born, to the strains of music by Alexander Flechtenmacher, a music professor from Iași during the times of the Union of the Principalities.

The route will follow Cuza Vodă Street, an old commercial street or the ‘Lipscani’ of Iași, and we will reach Miron Costin Square, where Casa Balș is located, with the Eduard Caudella Hall, named after the Italian piano teacher from Iași who taught George Enescu during his childhood. We will pass in front of the Moldova Philharmonic, where we will talk about the tradition of this wonderful institution, then by the Iași National Theatre and Opera, where classical music has found a wonderful form of expression.

The second part of the route will be Stefan cel Mare și Sfânt Pedestrian Boulevard, where public authorities (City Hall, Finance, National Bank, County Council) face off against ecclesiastical authority (Metropolitan Church of Moldova, Catholic Diocese, Holy Three Hierarchs Monastery). The new Catholic Cathedral ‘Saint Virgin Mary, Queen’ will be one of our stops, having become a traditional host for the opening of the Classix Festival.

The last stop will be at the Palace of Culture, where in the past, minstrels and court troubadours of the former Royal Palace of Moldova’s capital used to perform. Today, it hosts traditional classical music events both in the foyer (the hall of honor) and in the Henri Coandă Hall, the former court with a jury of the Palace of Justice. We will conclude the tour to the strains of Flechtenmacher’s Hora Unirii, played by the bells of the Palace tower.

Asociația Iași.Travel was established in 2019 in Iași with the goal of promoting Iași, training volunteer city guides, and implementing research and development projects in tourism. Currently, it has 15 members, including professors, graduates, and students from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași.