Ioana is an established soloist and chamber musician travelling to perform from her current home in Barcelona.
As soloist, Ioana has appeared with several orchestras in Ireland and abroad in performances of Shostakovitch, Bruch, Beethoven, Mozart, Khatchaturian and both Prokofiev Violin Concertos under the batons of William Eddins, Niklas Willen, James Lockhart, David Brophy, Neil Thomson, Prionnsias o'Duinn and Robert Houlihan. Other solo appearances with orchestra include works by Mozart, Saint-Saens and Sarasate and three concertos by Bach performed both on modern and baroque violin. Ioana has recorded the Bruch Violin Concerto with the RTE Concert Orchestra to critical acclaim featuring on both the RTE Lyric FM Lunchtime Choice 2 and 4x4 cds.
An accomplished chamber musician, Ioana performed the complete Beethoven Piano and Violin Sonatas while still pursuing her studies and for seven years she toured, recorded and coached as former 1st violin and founder member of the Callino Quartet. Participation in festivals such as the Cheltenham, Bergen, Heidelberg Fruhlungs, West Cork Chamber Music, Ryedale, Clandeboye and Sligo New Music Festivals has seen Ioana collaborate with a wide variety of artists - violists Bruno Giuranna and Rivka Golani, violinist Chee Yun, cellist Richard Lester, double bassist Edgar Meyer, pianists Gilbert Kalish, Julius Drake and Barry Douglas, jazz guitarist John Abercrombie and members of the Alban Berg, Vanbrugh and Vogler Quartets and of the Paris-Bastille Wind Octet. Ioana is currently a member of piano trio Ensemble Avalon and of the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
Ioana is deeply committed to performing new music and to raising awareness of living composers and their work. She has played contemporary works at the West Cork Chamber Music, Sligo New Music, Clandeboye and Cheltenham Festivals and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, RTE Lyric FM and Irish national television. Ioana has enjoyed many commissions, among the most recent being Donnacha Dennehy's 'Elastic Harmonic' for violin and orchestra with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland for broadcast on national television, performance during the Sligo New Music Festival and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 of Nono's 'La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura' and collaborating with renowned traditional duo Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill on the world premiere of 'Music for the Departed' by David Flynn - specially commissioned for the 2006 Masters of Tradition Festival.
Ioana Petcu-Colan graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London with a first-class Honours degree. She holds a first-class MA in Performance from the Cork School of Music having obtained the highest mark of her year as well as the Medaille d'Or (Premier Prix) a l'Unanimite which she was awarded from Nantes Conservatoire, France, at the age of sixteen. Ioana has studied with such renowned musicians as Hermann Krebbers, Mauricio Fuks, Lydia Mordkovitch, Erich Gruenberg, Mariana Sirbu, Gregory Ellis, Stefan Gheorghiu and Pierre Wallez. As a chamber musician, she has been coached by Ferenz Radosc, the RTE Vanbrugh, Skampa, and Panocha Quartets, also members of the Borodin, Alban Berg, Cleveland, Hagen and Amadeus Quartets.
Ioana plays an Italian violin built by Goffredo Cappa in 1695.