SACRUM Iași Art Festival 2026: Giotto, Brâncuși and Jordi Savall in the historic buildings of Iași, 4–30 October

The Palace of Culture in Iași was built between 1906 and 1925 to the designs of Ion D. Berindei, with Filip Xenopol and Grigore Cerchez, on the foundations and lower floors of the princely palace of 1803–1806: a flamboyant neo-Gothic pile that served as the city’s administrative and law courts until 1955 and now houses the four museums of the Moldova National Museum Complex, among them the Art Museum founded in 1860 and the History Museum of Moldavia. On 4 October 2026 it opened the first edition of SACRUM, the Iași Art Festival, with an exhibition in its Treasury Hall around the battle flag of Stephen the Great, and that afternoon the Romanian National Opera gave the opening gala: Jordi Savall with Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya in the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat.

The festival runs to 30 October under the theme Creatio et Intelligentia — from Divine Providence to Artificial Intelligence, with more than fifty events in over twenty historic and cultural spaces of the city. It is organised by the Sacrum Foundation, whose president is Professor Adrian Stoleriu, together with Iași City Hall and the Archdiocese of Iași, and with the city’s three universities, the Moldova National Museum Complex, the Metropolitan Museum, the National Opera, the National Athenaeum and the National Museum of Romanian Literature among the co-organisers. Its centrepiece is the first showing in Romania of a fourteenth-century polyptych attributed to Giotto and his workshop, lent by the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna and hung at the Palace of Culture from 7 October. At the Metropolitan Museum, from 9 October, Sacrul la feminin brings sculpture and personal objects of Constantin Brâncuși into the company of sacred art; at the monastery of the Three Hierarchs the festival shows the architectural drawings of André Lecomte du Noüy for the church, and the Braunstein Palace, the Turkish Baths and the Catacombe galleries host exhibitions of their own.

Most of the programme is free. The concerts at the Opera are ticketed: the Byzantine chant of Nikodimos Kabarnos on 17 October had sold out by the first week, and the closing gala on 28 October brings the tenor Ștefan Pop and the soprano Claudia Pavone to the same stage.

Programme highlights

• Sunday 4 October — official opening at the Palace of Culture, 1 pm, with the exhibition around the battle flag of Stephen the Great; opening gala with Jordi Savall at the Romanian National Opera, 6.30 pm
• From Wednesday 7 October — the Giotto polyptych from the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna at the Palace of Culture; Scriptorium at the Braunstein Palace
• Thursday 8 October — Restitutio at the monastery of the Three Hierarchs
• From Friday 9 October — Sacrul la feminin, with Brâncuși, at the Metropolitan Museum
• Saturday 17 October — Nikodimos Kabarnos at the Romanian National Opera (sold out)
• Wednesday 28 October — closing gala with Ștefan Pop and Claudia Pavone at the Romanian National Opera, 6.30 pm
• Friday 30 October — the exhibitions close

Practical details

• When: 4 to 30 October 2026
• Where: Palace of Culture, Piața Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt 1, Iași, Romania, and more than twenty venues across the city
• Admission: most events free; tickets for the Opera concerts through the festival’s own pages
• Organised by: Sacrum Foundation (president Prof. Adrian Stoleriu), with Iași City Hall and the Archdiocese of Iași
• Information: sacrum.art, the festival’s own site, with the full day-by-day programme

Cultural Heritage Online lists this festival for readers following the sacred art and the historic buildings of Moldavia.