Alexandra Silocea

Alexandra Silocea is an extraordinarily talented pianist with an unusually cosmopolitan background: born in Romania to parents with German and Russian ancestry, she received advanced training in Vienna and Paris and is based in the U.K. Not surprisingly, her repertory is broad, taking in music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Enescu, Ravel, Ginastera, and especially works by Prokofiev, whose entire solo output she plays. Besides appearing as soloist and recitalist, Silocea also regularly performs chamber works with such ensembles as the Aleksic String Trio. In this genre her repertory includes the Dvorák and Mahler piano quartets. Silocea has concertized throughout Europe, the U.K., and U.S., including at music festivals and at such major venues as Carnegie Hall. Silocea records for Avie Records. Born in 1984, Alexandra Silocea began piano lessons at age eight at the Constanta Music School. From 1995, she studied music at the George Enescu Music School in Bucharest. She was an active performer in her teens, appearing at such events as the opening concert of the 1999 Arcus Music Festival in St. Gheorge, Romania. In 2000 she began studies in Vienna at the University for Music and Performing Arts. Among her teachers there were Oleg Maisenberg, Michael Krist, and Christof Berner. Silocea was awarded the Herbert von Karajan Scholarship for the 2003-2004 school term. Earning an advanced degree in Vienna in 2006, Silocea began appearing in concerts and recitals throughout Europe. Among the more important of them was her 2008 debut in Vienna, which featured a performance of the Mozart Ninth Concerto ("Jeunehomme"), K. 271, with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Despite much concert success Silocea decided on further studies later that year, enrolling at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Her most important teachers there were Theodor Paraschivesco and Laurent Cabasso. Even while she was earning her second advanced degree, she maintained a fairly busy concert schedule outside of France, with major performances in Frankfurt, Vienna, and New York, where she debuted at Carnegie Hall in May 2009 in a program of Chopin and Prokofiev. In 2010, Silocea and Avie Records agreed on a project for the pianist to record all the Prokofiev sonatas. Her debut recording, containing the first five Prokofiev sonatas, was issued by the label in April 2011. Silocea's 2011 concert schedule included appearances in Bucharest, Vienna, Lima, and at the Meads Music Festival in Eastbourne (U.K.).
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