Valentin Radu leads Vox Ama Deus, featuring Renaissance, Baroque and Classical music by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart and Beethoven. They have an exciting series of concerts coming up in March, April, and May.
Romanian-born Maestro Valentin Radu is founder, artistic director, and conductor of Vox Ama Deus, which includes the Ama Deus Ensemble, Vox Renaissance Consort, and Camerata Ama Deus. Maestro Radu has conducted Vox Ama Deus in programs ranging from motets and madrigals to authentically staged Renaissance operas performed on original instruments. He has also led numerous orchestras and vocal ensembles in Europe and the United States, including the Hungarian National Philharmonic, Bucharest, Arad, Oradea Philharmonics, the Budapest Chamber Orchestra and the Romania National Radio Orchestra. In 1996 he conducted the Bucharest Philharmonic in Handel's Messiah, and in 1997 led the Romanian National Radio Orchestra in Handel's Acis and Galatea (both English language premieres).
Maestro Radu holds Doctoral and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Bucharest Academy of Music. In 1976, he founded and conducted Juvenes Musici, a chamber orchestra under the auspices of the Bucharest Philharmonic. In 1980 he founded "The Juilliard Bach Players" chamber orchestra and initiated the "Bach at Juilliard" concert series at New York's Lincoln Center.
In addition to his work as a conductor and artistic director, Maestro Radu is also a virtuoso pianist, organist, and a jazz musician who plays regularly at the State Department in Washington, D.C. and abroad.
Upcoming concerts of Vox Ama Deus include:
Bach Birthday Gala
Sunday, March 22 at 5 pm
Gladwyne Presbyterian Church
Mozart: Requiem
Friday, March 27 at 8 pm, Kimmel Center - Perelman Theater
Sunday, March 29 at 6 pm, Daylesford Abbey, Paoli
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons & More
Friday, April 17 at 8 pm
Kimmel Center - Perelman Theater
Handelfest
Sunday, May 31 at 6 pm
Daylesford Abbey, Paoli
Under the baton of Valentin Radu, the Ama Deus Ensemble has just released a new CD: Beethoven's Missa Solemnis & Egmont Overture. It's a brand-new Vox Ama Deus, tour de force recording of Beethoven's masterwork, in which Valentin Radu conducts the Ama Deus Ensemble with a stellar group of soloists including soprano Sarah Davis, mezzo-soprano Jody Kidwell, tenor Timothy Bentch, and bass Ed Bara. This Philadelphia-based group is comprised of some of the city's finest professional choral singers and players. The CD was recorded live in the in the sumptuous acoustic of Philadelphia's famous Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Composed in Austria from 1819-1823, around the same time as his great Ninth Symphony, Ludwig Van Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" is undoubtedly among his greatest works and is one of western civilization's most famous settings of the Latin mass. It was intended for the ceremony of the installation of his patron and pupil, Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop, and was premiered on March 22, 1824 at Vienna's famous Theater an der Wien in the same concert with Symphony 9.
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