Alexandra Dariescu
Ensemble:
Booking
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Press
She is clearly a very musical player, with excellent instincts and a natural way of shaping the music, from her lovely phrasing to her broader articulation of structure...overall Dariescu is enormously impressive...a very promising debut.
4 stars BBC Music Magazine December 2012 / Champs Hill CHRCDO35
Fleet of finger, elegant of phrase and pianistically bright, Dariescu uses rubato freely but intelligently...She brings luminescence and a sense of wistful joy
Music Web International October 2012 / Champs Hill recording
Dariescu’s beguiling musicality, unfussy technique, and individual voice are all readily apparent. We may confidently look forward to more fine music from this interesting young artist.
Patrick Rucker Fanfare Magazine / October 2012 / Champs Hill recording
Alexandra Dairescu was amazing. This vivacious Romanian pianist has already cut her first CD, and possesses a formidable technique; so what better way to show it off than in the Chopin Preludes. She started off dangerously with No 16 marked presto fuoco – and presto fuoco is what she delivered; and there was more of the same in No 21 (molto agitato) and the allegro appassionato of the final prelude. Yet she proved herself capable of far more than mere pianistic pyrotechnics, showing her expressive skills in No 20 in C minor (largo) and the ability to make the piano sing in No 21 in B flat (cantabile). She finished with Bacchanale by one of her compatriots, Constantin Silvestri….The Bacchanale was jolly, exuberant and wildly virtuosic, and Alexandra’s performance of it should serve as her calling card in the best circles.
www.seenandheardinternational.com Cheltenham Festival/BBC Radio 3 live broadcast July 2012
Alexandra Dariescu, the bright young Romanian pianist who is making it big…. thrived in moments of calmer serenity, purely stroking the higher keys of piano. This gentle bliss triggered a stunned silence.… Dariescu remains a pianist to watch.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Barbican / Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the RPO December 2011
'A Wigmore appearance was 25-year-old Alexandra Dariescu's reward for winning the Guildhall Recital Prize, and she bravely went off-piste with Bartok's Suite op 14 and a complex Dutilleux rarity. Schumann's Abegg Variations and the Liszt-Wagner 'Liebestod' allowed her to demonstrate her tender and vivid approach to the keyboard.'
International Piano / Michael Church Wigmore Hall, May-June 2011
'Soloist Alexandra Dariescu gave a stylish, purposeful and robust performance of the concerto with clean attack and clarity of articulation.'
Nottingham Evening Post Sinfonia ViVa/Beethoven 3/Andre de Ridder, November 2009
`Her playing combines effortless technical control with an individual approach to sound, particularly exemplified in her playing of Chopin.'
Manchester Recital Series, 2008
`Alexandra Dariescu is a highly sensitive, intelligent, mature artist. Her playing has imagination, flair, deep comprehension of the spirit of the music she plays, and she has got the fingers to implement her ideas.'
Nelson Goerner
'The Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu gave Mozart's late Dupont Variations with an admirable sense of style, and Chopin's B minor Sonata. This was very powerfully projected with an admirable delineation of character allied to strong poetic feeling.'
Musical Opinion Purcell Room, Nov-Dec 2008 issue
Recordings
Video
Featured as BBC Music Magazine's Rising Star in June 2011, Alexandra Dariescu is an outstanding communicator, hugely popular with audiences.
Featured as BBC Music Magazine’s Rising Star in June 2011, Alexandra Dariescu is an outstanding communicator, hugely popular with audiences.
In 2012 Alexandra made her debut at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall where she was one of five young international pianists invited by Andras Schiff to join him in a residency. She has given recitals at major venues and festivals throughout Europe and further afield including Wigmore Hall, Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, Bridgewater Hall, Mozarteum Buenos Aires, the Gstaad, City of London, Cheltenham (broadcast by BBC Radio 3) and Bath Festivals, among many others.
As a concerto soloist she has appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia ViVA, Northern Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul’s Orchestra and European Union Chamber Orchestra, at venues including the Barbican, South Bank and LSO St. Lukes. In 2011 she gave the world premiere of a piano concerto by Emily Howard with the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra and recorded her first CD for Champs Hill Records.
This season Alexandra makes her debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Staatstheater Staatskappelle in the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater in Schwerin. SShe appears in solo recitals at the Bridgewater and Cambridge International Piano Series and as soloist at the Barbican, Bridgewater, Royal Concert Hall (Glasgow) and at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Alexandra regularly gives masterclasses and concerts at the Geneva International Summer Festival and Academy and in 2010 was a Laureate at the Verbier Festival Academy where she won the CUBS Bank Verbier Festival & Academy Prize. In 2010 she won the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Wigmore Hall Prize and in 2008 the prestigious Prix Maurice Ravel at the Academie Internationale de Musique Ravel in France, returning to give a recital at the Ravel Festival in 2009. She is one of the first artists to take part in the RPS/YCAT Philip Langridge Mentoring Scheme with Imogen Cooper.
Committed to chamber music, Alexandra has collaborated with the Belcea, Elias, Idomeneo and Sacconi Quartets, and violinist Alina Ibragimova at venues including Wigmore Hall and the City of London Festival. Further afield she has given recitals in the USA, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Moldavia and Argentina, broadcast for BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM, radio and television stations across Romania, Manx Radio, Isle of Man and Nevada Radio in California.
Born in Romania in 1985, Alexandra Dariescu studied in Iasi, Romania, Pocklington School in York and the Royal Northern College of Music (where her teachers included Nelson Goerner, Mark Ray and Dina Parakhina) graduating in 2008 with distinction. During her studies Alexandra won all the major prizes and awards including the Gold Medal, Chopin Prize and Peter Donohoe Prize. She was selected by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2008 and completed her Masters at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Ronan O’Hora.