A festival open to young people
At the end of the year, Classix Festival 2026 announces the winners of the scholarships for emerging artists, launches the casting call for soloist roles, and opens the volunteer call.
Classix Festival returns between March 1 and March 8, 2026, in Iași, and announces the start of preparations for the new edition through three key directions: the announcement of the Classix in Art 2026 grant winners, the launch of the national casting for Leoš Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen, and the opening of the volunteer call for the 2026 edition.
Classix in Art 2026 Grants
One of the key directions of Classix is the Classix in Art grant program, dedicated to supporting emerging creative work, initiated by the Creative Industries Association, co‑organizer of the festival, with the support of the main partner BRD Groupe Société Générale.
The call launched this edition attracted significant interest at the national level, bringing together projects from a variety of Romanian cities and regions. The proposals received reflected a variety of artistic approaches and a visible maturation of creative discourse, making the selection process careful and rigorous, built around criteria of artistic quality, conceptual coherence, and interdisciplinary relevance.
Following the selection, the winners of the Classix in Art 2026 grants were designated:
Andrei Popovici (Iași) – Visual Arts
Alina Tofan (Bucharest) – Performing Arts
Mariana Preda (Dâmbovița) – Music.
Since the launch of the program in 2021, Classix in Art has supported 18 artistic projects, offering young creators not only financial support but also a framework for visibility, dialogue, and artistic experimentation. In the 2026 edition, each grant has a value of €1,000, and the selected projects will be developed in the coming months and presented to the public during Classix Festival 2026, in a curatorial context that reflects the contemporary and interdisciplinary direction of the festival.
National Casting for The Cunning Little Vixen (Leoš Janáček)
In the same spirit of supporting young artists and opening the festival stage to emerging talents, Classix has launched the national casting for the opera The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček.
The event will take place on March 7, 2026, within Classix Festival, and is proposed in an adapted version for children and families, with the libretto translated and performed entirely in Romanian. This format aims to bring young audiences closer to the world of opera through an accessible format that preserves the expressiveness and power of the original music.
The casting is open to students of public music universities in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, as well as graduates who completed their studies no earlier than the Class of 2018. Available roles include soprano, mezzo‑soprano, and baritone, offering young soloists the chance to perform on the stage of an international festival and be part of a professional production.
The performance will be realized alongside the Classix Collective ensemble under the musical direction of Norwegian conductor Kristoffer Wøien. Registrations are open until January 15, 2026, and casting results will be announced on January 20, 2026.
Volunteer Call for Classix Festival 2026
Since its first edition, Classix Festival has been built not only as a space for artistic encounter but also as a platform for active involvement for young people interested in cultural life and events organization. Over the editions held so far, the festival has recorded a consistently high demand from young people eager to be actively involved.
For the 2026 edition, Classix opens its volunteer call again, addressed to young people who want to be part of the festival team and discover from the inside the mechanisms of an international cultural event. Volunteers will be involved in areas such as audience relations, support for artists and guests, festival organization and logistics, as well as communication and documentation activities.
The volunteering experience within Classix Festival is designed as a learning and collaboration process, based on teamwork, responsibility, and direct contact with artists, the organizing team, and the public. The volunteer call is part of the festival’s commitment to building an active community and offering young people real contexts for cultural engagement.
Registrations for volunteering are open until January 25, 2026, with selection carried out based on the form available on the festival’s official website, classixfestival.ro
Classix Festival 2026 Artistic Program
In parallel with these initiatives, the concert program of Classix Festival 2026 is beginning to be finalized, with the public already able to discover some of the titles that shape the artistic direction of the edition, Art & Mind:
On March 2, the Voces del Amor concert will take place at the Students’ Cultural House, followed on March 3 by Rhapsody in Motion at the same venue. On March 4, the public is invited to the Palace of Culture for the Love Frequencies concert, while on March 5, In Between will be presented in the Aula of the Central University Library “Mihai Eminescu.” March 7 brings both the children’s show The Cunning Little Vixen and the The Sound of Us concert to Sala Unirii – Cinema Victoria. The edition will conclude on March 8 with the gala concert La Bellezza, scheduled at the Vasile Alecsandri National Theatre in Iași.
General subscriptions and concert tickets, at reduced prices, are available on the official festival website. Students benefit from a 50% discount, and purchases made with a BRD Groupe Société Générale card receive an automatic 15% discount at checkout. Organizers recommend booking early due to limited seating.
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Since 2020, Classix Festival has become one of the most important independent cultural events in Romania, bringing together over 350 international artists from 23 countries, presenting 49 concerts, 23 panel discussions, 193 masterclass sessions, 6 exhibitions, 10 short film screenings, and offering 18 creative grants. The festival has attracted over 30,000 spectators in halls and more than 365,000 online participants, confirming its role as a catalyst for cultural dialogue and artistic innovation.
Organizers: Creative Industries Association, Showberry
Main Partner: BRD Groupe Société Générale
Cultural Partners: Austrian Cultural Forum, German Cultural Center, Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest, French Institute in Romania (Iași), Polish Institute
Institutional Partners: “Moldova” State Philharmonic Iași, Roman Catholic Diocese of Iași, National Museum Complex “Moldova” – Palace of Culture Iași, Central University Library “Mihai Eminescu” Iași, Romanian National Opera Iași
Strategic Partners: DAC Music Performance
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The Creative Industries Association is the organizer of the Rocanotherworld and Classix festivals in Iași, aiming to revitalize the city’s cultural life, engage creative communities, and encourage participation in civil society through initiatives that promote a proactive, contributive, and participatory spirit.
Showberry, a member of AROC (Romanian Association of Concert and Cultural Event Organizers), is a startup and winner of the Invest in People! program. Since 2015, it has been developing cultural and creative projects, being one of the main promoters of public concerts and themed events in Romania’s northeast region. Since 2016, it has co-organized the Rocanotherworld festival, and since 2020, the Classix Festival, alongside the Creative Industries Association.
Website: www.classixfestival.ro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/classixFestival/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/classix.ro
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@classixfestival
Contact: admin@classixfestival.ro
