"Ionel Perlea" Orchestra

The name honours Ionel Perlea, born in 1900 at Ograda in Ialomita county, music director of the Bucharest Opera from 1934 to 1944 and afterwards a conductor at La Scala and the Metropolitan. Slobozia, the county town, keeps his memory through the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre, which runs singing and conducting competitions under his name and provides the orchestra that plays for them. The tenth international conducting competition was held there in 2026.