Brahms Cycle III

7.30pm, Saturday 17th April 2010 at St George's, Bristol

Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture
Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor with Diana Ionescu (piano)
Brahms Symphony No 3 in F

  Diana Ionescu

Born in Campina, Romania, in 1981, Diana began studying the piano with Sanda Bobescu, a professor at the National Music Academy in Bucharest. From 1991 to 1992 she was a pupil of Olga Szell at the Georges Ensecu Institute in Bucharest. She then entered Dan Grigore's class at Bucharest's National Music University, from which she graduated in 2003 with the highest grades possible. Diana has attended master classes headed by Alexis Weissenberg, Viktor Merzhanov and Dmitri Bashkirov, and she is currently a pupil of Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London).

She won first prize in the Brasov international piano competition (1996) and in the Georges Ensecu international piano competition (Bucharest, 2001). She has given concerts in Romania, various other European countries (Austria, Belgium, Great Britain and Switzerland), Russia, Japan and the United States. She has recorded for Radio Bucharest, Radio France, Radio de la Suisse Romande, Russian National Radio and Romanian television and is currently engaged in recording a series of Mozart Piano Sonatas for Romanian national radio. She played the Grieg Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov 3rd with the Brunel Sinfonia.

The Bristol Classical Players' second season, following on from their successful Beethoven Cycle, focuses on the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms. Brahms greatly admired Mendelssohn and his friend Schumann, whose famous seascape and beautiful piano concerto are followed tonight by Brahms' most lyrical and complex symphony.

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