"Aletheia" Choir

FIRST STEPS...

Exactly 10 years ago, a handful of ambitious students of the University of Arts in Iasi were shaping a new dream. Coordinated by Mirabela Iușcă and chanting at the time in Bărboi Church, a cultural space with a valuable choral tradition, they dared to leave the choir’s balcony, organizing biannual concerts that attracted an increasingly large audience, thanks to the sensitivity with which they interpreted the religious and carol repertoire.

Those were the years when the choral movement was gaining momentum in Iasi. Many priests wanted the Liturgy to be embellished by four-part harmony. Supported by Father Constantin Andrei, that handful of people began to implement bold ideas. Thus was born, in 2012, the Composers of Today's Iasi project, designed to bring a new breath to the choral repertoire. At that time, works of great depth composed by Viorel Munteanu, Romeo Cozma, Gheorghe Duțică, Ciprian Ion, Leonard Dumitriu, Ciprian Chițu, Bogdan Chiroșcă and George Dumitriu, all professors of the University of Arts in Iași, were performed for the first time.

The CD "Pray and Watch", produced at ROTON in 2014, under the direction of Dorina Iuscă, is the testimony of that beautiful cooperation, a moment when the voices of the Barboi church found a name: Aletheia, a Greek philosophical concept meaning truth, knowledge. Because that's what they always wanted: to discover as much as possible of music, tackling new and challenging repertoires or testing their vocal and emotional limits by exploring diverse and interesting musical styles.

SUCCESS IN NATIONAL COMPETITIONS

In 2011 the choir tried its competitive strength for the first time. The Grand Prize they won at the Buna Vestire National Competition in Fundu Moldovei was an encouraging success that led them to enter the much disputed Praise the Lord festival organized by the Romanian Patriarchate. In 2013, the choir won the eparchial and metropolitan stages, competing in the national stage with choirs of great expressive power and bringing from Bucharest the second prize. In the souls of the people of Aletheia, this moment created the premises for the desire to demonstrate more, always confident that they can and that it can be done. And the fruits of this desire did not take long to appear.

INTERNATIONAL VALIDATIONS

In 2016 the Aletheia Choir welcomed a new generation of students, many of whom were Russian-speaking Bessarabians who spoke passionately about the beauty of Slavonic choral expression. That is why it was perhaps not by chance that they entered the international competition Koloțchi blagovest in the Republic of Belarus. The opportunity to represent Romania in this competition came unexpectedly and, crammed into a minibus, they travelled one day and night in February, at minus 20 degrees Celsius, to reach Grodno and win the Grand Prize, competing against Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, France and Iran.

In May of the same year Aletheia received an invitation to compete again, this time in Poland at the Hajnowka competition, where it won first prize, proving that that handful of big-hearted people have the power to do extraordinary things.

In 2017, the success in Belarus and Poland caught the attention of Russia's musical elite. The honorary invitation to perform in the Moscow State Conservatory season was a high-profile experience that showed that the members of the Aletheia Choir, through their hard work and talent, have earned a well-deserved place in the space of international choral performance

INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS IN VARIOUS MUSICAL STYLES

True to its name, the Aletheia Choir wanted to explore new spaces, this time in different styles of music. In 2018 it entered the prestigious Cecilia Seghizzi competition in Italy where it won the second prize in the Jazz section and first prize in the Gospel section, competing with awe-inspiringly expressive choirs from Indonesia, the Philippines, Italy, Ukraine, France, Iran and Spain.

In 2019 it won three first prizes in the Folklore, Sacred Music and Contemporary Music sections at the Singing World competition in St Petersburg where it competed against choirs from 50 countries. The special awards for best solo voice (Antonia Cucerenco) and best performance of a sacred work were an additional joy for the members of the Aletheia Choir.

Moving out of the area of religious repertoire, in recent years the Aletheia Choir has represented the George Enescu National University of Arts in international competitions.