background

...an informal introduction...

growing up in a family of professional classical violinists, ioana was fascinated watching her parents practice and perform and began her first violin lessons with her father, adrian petcu, at the age of four. she soon showed an aptitude and at six took to the stage, winning almost every competition at regional and national level. studies in france and uk followed.

over the years ioana has enjoyed solo performances of many of the great violin concertos including mozart, beethoven, khatchaturian, prokofiev, shostakovich, bach and bruch. she has recorded the latter for commercial release on the lyric fm label with the rte concert orchestra and has also performed short works by saint-saens, wieniawski, vaughan williams, tavener and more with orchestra.

with a deep love of chamber music, ioana has explored the extensive repertoire as violinist with several ensembles, with notable highlights including her performing the complete beethoven piano and violin sonatas in concert and her former position as leader and founder member of the callino quartet with whom she toured, coached and recorded for seven years. ioana is currently violinist with piano trio ensemble avalon with whom she has recently released an internationally acclaimed cd for the lyric label, the trio present their own annual festival in wexford each winter and are at present putting the final touches on a residency programme at trinity college dublin, to commence shortly.

as a relatively young artist ioana feels strongly about the promotion of contemporary work and is dedicated to her role in increasing audience awareness of new music, particularly that of irish composers. she has performed commissions and world premiers on international radio and television working with composers such as arvo part, philip glass and peteris vasks and has enjoyed collaborations with an incredibly diverse range of international artists and masters of their genre, for example john abercrombie (jazz), edgar meyer (everything!), martin hayes and dennis cahill (traditional irish) and canadian rock band arcade fire. her recording of ian wilson's string quartets is available on the riverrun label and her most recent collaboration with ian is reflected in una santa oscura, best described as a 'multi-sensory performance...an opera without singers'. ioana was invited by publishing house universal edition to join a project linking contemporary composers and performers to young gifted musicians.

ioana enjoys a richly varied career performing works spanning three centuries from the baroque era to the present day. she is an accomplished soloist and is an experienced and much-respected chamber musician travelling the world to perform.

(for a professional biography visit the download page)