Ioana Cristina Goicea Violin
Andrei Banciu Piano

Ioana Cristina Goicea is one of the outstanding violinists of her generation. She won First Prize at the 2017 Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand, with critics praising her passionate performance and describing her as “a new star in the musical firmament.” In 2018 she won First Prize at the German Music Competition in Bonn and was a laureate of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. In 2019 she became a prize winner of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. She is also the winner of the J. Brahms International Competition (2013) and laureate of the ”Fritz Kreisler” International Violin Competition Vienna (2014)

In October 2020, at the age of 27 she has been appointed violin professor at the renowned University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

Ms. Goicea has performed at renowned venues in Europe, Asia, America, New Zealand and Australia, among them the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, St Martin-in-the-Fields London, the Melbourne Recital Centre, Bozar Brussels, Meistersingerhalle Nürnberg, the Queen Elisabeth Hall Antwerp, the Shanghai Concert Hall, the Athenaeum Bucharest, the Townhall Auckland, the Slovak Philharmonic Bratislava, Konzerthaus Freiburg.

She has performed as a soloist with the Belgian National Orchestra, Nürnberger Symphoniker, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Staatskapelle Halle, Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Indianapolis Symphony, the George Enescu Philharmonic Bucharest, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, the National Radio Orchestra Bucharest, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie, and the Baden-Baden Philharmonic.

In addition to her career as a soloist, the young violinist is also an avid chamber musician. She performed at renowned chamber music festivals and academies: the Verbier Academy, Hitzacker Festival and Academy and the Heidelberger Frühling Academy.
In 2015, together with pianist Andrei Banciu, she won the Second Prize and the Young Duo Award at the International Competition “Premio Trio di Trieste” in Trieste, Italy.

Ioana Cristina Goicea was born into a family of musicians in Bucharest in 1992. She is studying with Krzysztof Węgrzyn at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. She previously studied with Mariana Sîrbu at the University of Music and Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig and with Petru Munteanu at the University of Music and Theater in Rostock. She participated in masterclasses with Prof. Mihaela Martin, Silvia Marcovici, Pinchas Zuckerman and Saschko Gawriloff.

Born in 1985 in Timisoara (Romania), Andrei Banciu began studying the piano in his home town with Maria Bodo, later continuing in Berlin at the UdK (University of the Arts) under Prof. Klaus Hellwig and at the ”Hanns Eisler” School of Music under Prof. Fabio Bidini. He also studied Lied accompaniment with Prof. Wolfram Rieger and has taken masterclasses with Paul Badura-Skoda, Pascal Devoyon, Rainer Becker, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Jacques Rouvier, Rudolf Buchbinder and Mennahem Pressler.

From an early age he was a prize-winner at numerous national and international competitions, such as Rovere d’Oro, San Bartolomeo al Mare, Italy (1995), Jeunesses Musicales Bucharest, Romania (1998 and 2002), Kissinger Klavier Olymp (”Kissinger Piano Olympics”) Bad Kissingen, Germany (2004), Béla Bartók Szeged, Hungary (2006) and the Artur Schnabel Piano Competition Berlin (2010). In 2015 he was a finalist in the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb (German Music Competition) in Lübeck and was awarded a scholarship, being subsequently selected to take part in the 60th selected young artists´ concert season (”60. Bundesauswahl Konzerte Junger Künstler”). In September 2015, in duo with violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea he was awarded second prize at the Premio Trio di Trieste chamber music competition in Italy and has since performed throughout Europe in venues such as the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, the Romanian Atheneum, Bucharest and the Teatro Ristori and Teatro filarmonico, Verona.

In 2005 he had his first recital tour in the USA. He has participated in important music festivals in Germany, such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, ”Kissinger Sommer” in Bad Kissingen and the European Weeks, Passau, and has performed as a soloist with orchestras throughout Romania, as well as with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra and the Cairo Symphony Orchestra.
As an active chamber musician, he has given performances with the Jacques Thibaud String Trio in Germany and the USA since 2003. He is also the pianist and a founder member of the Jacques Thibaud Ensemble. He has had numerous concert appearances in Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, France and the UK, including such venues as the Maison de la Radio France in Paris and the Royal Festival Hall, London. As a duo with violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea, he has appeared in numerous concerts in Germany, Italy and Romania. From 2010 to 2013 he was a faculty member of the Musica Mundi Chamber Music Course and Festival in Belgium, where he also appeared as a soloist with the Festival Orchestra conducted by Maxim Vengerov in 2012, and with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra in the concert for the Festival’s 15th Anniversary in 2013.

He has been teaching at the Leipzig ”Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” University of Music and Theatre since 2012 and at the UdK Berlin since 2014. Between 2016 and 2018 he held a teaching post at the University of Music “Franz Liszt” in Weimar and starting in October 2018 he will be on the faculty of the ”Hanns Eisler” School of Music in Berlin.

His concert performances have been broadcast on Bayerischer Rundfunk, Deutschlandfunk, Radio France, Radio 4 Netherlands, RAI 3 Italy.