From the Royal Albert Hall in London to Carnegie Hall in New York, the young Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu, recently named as “one of 30 pianists under 30 destined for a spectacular career” in the International Piano Magazine, has dazzled audiences worldwide with her effortless musicality and captivating stage presence. Alexandra has recently been awarded the Custodian of the Romanian Crown Medal, the youngest person to receive a distinction from the Royal Family of Romania.
Selected as one of Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30, Alexandra Dariescu is an outstanding ambassador for classical music. In 2013 she gave her debut at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and became the first ever Romanian female pianist to perform in this prestigious hall. Alexandra won UK’s Women of the Future Award in the Arts and Culture category in 2013, Romania’s Woman of the Year in 2014 and she has released two CDs on Champs Hill Records to critical acclaim.
This season, Alexandra releases her first concerto recording, Tchaikovsky 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Darrell Ang on Signum Records coupled with the Nutcracker Suite arranged by M. Pletnev. She also releases her second volume of complete preludes by Shostakovich and Szymanowski on Champs Hill Records and Mesmerism for piano and orchestra by Emily Howard with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Gourley on NMC Records.
Alexandra makes her debut with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and John Storgårds in Norway (Nordic premiere of Ginastera’s Concerto Argentino) and with the Philharmonisches Orchester Cottbus in Germany (Prokofiev 3). Return concerto visits include Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin and Evan Christ in Germany (Grieg), Hallé and Jamie Phillips (Tchaikovsky 1), Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra and Maxime Tortelier (Shostakovich 2), as well as a UK tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Fabien Gabel (Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). Alexandra will also give the world premiere of Iris ter Schiphorst’s new piano concerto and Danyal Dhondy’s In Touch for piano and orchestra in front of an audience of 3,000 people. A highlight of this season is Alexandra’s return to the Wigmore Hall in London for a solo recital as well as a return visit to the Royal Albert Hall (Beethoven 5) and to the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest with the Ad Libitum Quartet (Elgar Piano Quintet).
Over the last season, Alexandra made her debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as part of a two week recital tour of the Netherlands, at the Piano District Series in Switzerland, with Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau and Antony Hermus in Germany, Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra and Ewa Strusinska in Poland, the Youth Orchestra and Tiberiu Soare in Romania and Rokiskis in Lithuania. In the UK, Alexandra returned to the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Grzegorz Nowak, Sage Gateshead in Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Alexandre Bloch, Alexandra Soumm and Jakob Koranyi, live on BBC Radio 3, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Anthony Inglis and toured the country in various festivals.
Alexandra is a Board Member of the Adept Foundation and helped organise the first “Transylvania Festival” in London in the presence of HRH Prince of Wales. Over the last couple of years, Alexandra performed with Andrew Litton and the RPO, Vasily Petrenko and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Jiri Belohlavek and BBC Symphony Orchestra, Grant Llewelyn and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Stephen Bell and the Halle, Ryan Wigglesworth and RLPO and she has been featured on BBC Radio 3 and 4, BBC 2 Newsnight, Classic FM, all TV and Radio stations across Romania.
Committed to education, Dariescu continues her collaboration with Rhapsody in School in Germany, leads masterclasses with scholars from the Princess Margareta Foundation in Bucharest and Durban Music School in South Africa and collaborates with Princess Margareta Foundation Youth Orchestra in Romania and the National Youth Orchestra for All in the UK. Alexandra will be the Guest Speaker at Speeches Day at Pocklington School, which will precede a masterclass with piano students. Dedicated to charity work, Alexandra helped raise more than £160,000 for Young Talents programme in Romania as well as Goodwill Children’s Homes, Ataxia UK and Children of the Andes in Columbia.
Named BBC Music Magazine ‘Rising Star’, Alexandra Dariescu made her debut at the Carnegie Hall in New York in 2011, where she joined András Schiff during his “Perspectives” residency. Selected by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2008, Alexandra was a Laureate at the Verbier Festival Academy in Switzerland where she won the Verbier CUBS Prize. She went on to win the Guildhall Wigmore Prize and the Romanian Ambassador‘s Award for her outstanding contribution to promoting Romania’s image in the UK, as well as the Prix Maurice Ravel in France.
Alexandra is the first pianist mentored by Imogen Cooper through the Royal Philharmonic Society/YCAT Philip Langridge Mentoring Scheme. Alexandra began her piano studies with Mihaela Constantin and Cornelia Apostol at the Special Music School in Romania and moved to the UK at the age of 17 to study at Pocklington School with Faye Mercer, at the Royal Northern College of Music with Nelson Goerner, Alexander Melnikov, Dina Parakhina and Mark Ray, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Ronan O’Hora and she was part of András Schiff’s class at the Gstaad Festival in Switzerland. Alexandra was part of Dimitri Bashkirov and Menahem Pressler’s class in Verbier, Dominique Merlet’s in Valloires and Phillippe Cassard’s in Sion.