Chișinău (Romanian pronunciation: [kiʃiˈnəw]; historically also known as Kishinev, from Russian: Кишинёв) is the capital and largest city of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre, and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc. According to January 2012 official estimates, Chișinău proper has a population of 723,500 and the municipality of Chișinău is home to 794,800 residents.

Chișinău is the most economically prosperous locality in Moldova, and its largest transportation hub. As the most economically and socially important municipality in Moldova, the city has a broad range of educational facilities.

The origin of the city's name is unclear. In one version, the name comes from the archaic Romanian word chișla (meaning "spring", "source of water") and nouă ("new"), because it was built around a small spring, located at the corner of Pushkin and Albișoara streets.

An alternative version, by Ștefan Ciobanu, Romanian historian and academician, holds that the name was formed the same way as the name of Chișineu (alternative spelling: Chișinău) in Western Romania, near the border with Hungary. Its Hungarian name is Kisjenő, from which the Romanian name originates. Kisjenő in turn comes from kis "small" + the "Jenő" tribe, one of the seven Hungarian tribes that entered the Carpathian Basin in 896 and gave the name of 21 settlements.

Gabi Luncă (born in 1938) is a Romani singer of urban lăutarească music from Romania, born in Vărbilău, Prahova County.

Her father was also a lăutar, a violinist very respected among lăutari because he was a "notist" (he knew to read music). Her mother died when she was little and this left a major impression on her life - many of her song deal with the "mother" theme.

She was a favorite of Romania's communist ruler Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena.

In the later part of her life, Gabi Luncă converted to Pentecostalism and started singing exclusively religious music.

She was married to the great accordionist Ion Stan-Onoriu.

Sofia Micu (23 September 1941, Toporăuţi, judeţul Cernăuţi, today in Ukraine), known by her stage name of Sofia Vicoveanca, is a renowned Romanian singer of popular music music from the Bucovina region.

Sofia Vicoveanca was born Sofia Fusa on 23 September 1941 in the commune of Toporăuţi (today Toporovtsy), near Cernăuţi (today Chernivtsi in Ukraine). She was one of the four children of the merchant Gheorghe Fusa and his wife Veronica.

Her childhood was marked by difficulty, her father being taken prisoner by the Soviets after the annexation of northern Bucovina by the Soviet Union. She escaped with her mother to the commune of Vicovu de Jos in the Suceava district; out of love for the village, she later changed her stage name to Sofia Vicoveanca.

Constrained by the poverty of living as a refugee, the young Sofia learned the traditional crafts of Bucovina. She graduated from the Şcoala Populară de Artă in Suceava before winning, in 1959, a competition to join the same city's "Ciprian Porumbescu" Ensemble of Song and Dance. In 1965, she released her first album. Since 1998, she has performed as a soloist with Moldavia's foremost folk music orchestra, the Ensemble "Rapsozii Botoşanilor" in Botoşani.

Chris Norman (born Christopher Ward Norman, 25 October 1950, Redcar, North Yorkshire, England) is an English soft rock singer. Norman was the lead singer of Smokie, an English glam rock band from Bradford, which found success in Europe in the 1970s.

His parents did not intend that he should pursue a stage career, but when he was just three years old, he decided to walk on stage and join the finale line-up for the show in which his parents were appearing.

This may have had an effect on him because with the advent of rock and roll, Norman acquired his first guitar at the age of seven. His early musical influences were Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Lonnie Donegan.

In these early years, Norman’s parents moved around the country a lot which resulted in him going to nine different schools, and living in various locations around England, such as, Redcar, Luton, Kimpton and Nottingham. By 1962 however the family had moved back to Norman's mother's home city of Bradford. Approaching his twelfth birthday, Norman started at St. Bede’s Grammar School where he was to meet Alan Silson and Terry Uttley, future members of Smokie.