ANDREI IONITA
CELLO
The Gold Medal-winner at the 2015 XV International Tchaikovsky Competition, the phenomenal young cellist Andrei Ioniță was called “one of the most exciting cellists to have emerged for a decade” by the prestigious Times of London. A versatile musician focused on giving gripping, deeply felt performances, Andrei has been recognized for his passionate musicianship and technical finesse.
Highlights of Andrei’s 2017-18 season includes performances with the Hallé Orchestra, BBC Wales, Staatskapelle Weimar, Vienna Radio Symphony, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony, Bucharest Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, and Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Andrei regularly collaborates with Valery Gergiev, Mikko Franck, and Cristian Măcelaru. He will also make recital debuts at Carnegie Hall and the Wigmore Hall.
His 2016-17 season featured major debuts with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the MDR Orchester and the Munich Philharmonic, and recital debuts in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The 2015-16 season included performances with the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev at Cadogan Hall in London, as well as performances with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Filarmonica di Bologna, and the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra in Bucharest. Andrei also performed recitals in Berlin, New York, Munich, St. Petersburg, and throughout Italy before undertaking a chamber music tour of Korea together with the violinist Clara-Jumi Kang and pianist Lucas Debargue. In June 2014, he collaborated with Gidon Kremer and Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy’s Festival “Chamber Music Connects the World.” In the past few years, Andrei has been heard in such venues as the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie in Berlin, Herkulessaal in Munich, Stadtcasino in Basel and Atheneum in Bucharest.
Before winning the Tchaikovsky Competition, Andrei won First Prize at the Aram Khachaturian International Competition in June 2013; in September 2014, he won Second Prize and the Special Prize for the interpretation of a commissioned composition at the International ARD Music Competition in Munich. In 2014, he received Second Prize at the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin.
Andrei was born in 1994 in Bucharest and began taking piano lessons at the age of five before receiving his first cello lesson three years later. He studied under Ani-Marie Paladi in Bucharest and under Jens Peter Maintz at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Andrei draws his musical inspiration from the greatest cellists of our time, among them David Geringas, Steven Isserlis, Heinrich Schiff, Wolfgang Boettcher, Gary Hoffman and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.
Andrei Ionita is a scholarship recipient of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and performs on a cello made by Giovanni Battista Rogeri from Brescia in 1671, generously on loan from the foundation.