Ioana Maria Lupașcu
Ioana Maria Lupaşcu (born in Brăila in September 1977) is a Romanian pianist.
Born to an old family of doctors, Lupaşcu started piano studies by the age of 4 and gave her first public performance by the age of 6. After graduating from the Music Conservatory in Bucharest, she left for Switzerland. After that she moved to Italy where she was a student of Russian pianist Lazar Berman for 5 years at the Accademia Europea di Musica.[1]
She was called by the Italian press[1] "a pianist full of virtuosity" and by the Romanian press "the new star of her generation; a warm, romantic and energetic pianist." She played concerts and recitals in Romania, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Belgium, Croatia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Germany, Spain and several others. She was invited to The Proms (Eastern Gala). Lupaşcu also made other appearances: mixing theater and music or writing weekly pieces as a journalist (2003–2005), or in her very early childhood being a professional swimmer. Since 2007 she is piano state soloist at the "Paul Constantinescu" Philharmonic Orchestra in Ploiești, Romania .
In 2004, caught by the tsunami wave in the Maldives, she experienced the death of her father. Just a few days later, she decided to move back to her native country, Romania, where she is a state soloist. In Romania she played with nearly all the philharmonic orchestras, including the ones in Bucharest; and she recorded with Radio Symphony Orchestra.
She released the CD "Live Piano Solo" (2007) with works by Liszt, Bach–Busoni, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Silvestri and "Piano Recital" in 2009 (Ed. Casa Radio) with works by Scarlatti, Chopin, Schubert, Liszt, Schubert-Liszt, Skriabin, Rachmaninov, Bartók. In 2008 she releases the autobiographic novel "The Prince of the Baton" (Ed. Meteor Press), in which Ilarion Ionescu-Galați is the main character, and in less than three months the whole first edition was sold out.