Irina Muresanu

Irina Muresanu (Irina-Roxana Muresanu) is a Romanian violinist born (in Bucharest, Romania) on May 26, 1971.  Muresanu is known for attaining a very successful (and well-balanced) concertizing career on both sides of the Atlantic.  She began her violin studies at age 7 with Vlad Cristian.  She later studied with Stefan Gheorghiu, (pupil of George Enesco and David Oistrakh) who had also taught Silvia Marcovici much earlier.  Muresanu earned her first degree at the Bucharest Academy in 1994.  That same year, she came to the U.S for further study and her career has been non-stop ever since.  In the U.S. she studied at the University of Illinois and at the New England Conservatory.  One of her teachers in Boston was Michele Auclair.  The Los Angeles Times has written that her performances contain “musical luster, melting lyricism and colorful conception.”  Strad Magazine called her Carnegie Weill Hall performance “a first-rate recital.”  Her debut performance at Weill Hall took place in 1997.  She was 26 years old.  In 1999 she received her Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory.  She had already won top prizes in major competitions, including the Montreal and the Queen Elizabeth (Belgium.)  Although her repertoire includes the standard concertos and recital pieces every violinist plays, her recordings contain many contemporary or seldom-heard modern works.  One of the latest is the violin concerto composed for her by Thomas Lee premiered in March and recorded in August of 2010.  Besides concertizing with major orchestras around the world, she is now Artist-in-Residence at the Boston Conservatory and teaches at Harvard University.  The Boston Trio, which she joined in 2002, is Ensemble-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory.  Muresanu, as do almost all contemporary concert violinists, also plays chamber music and gives Master Classes at music festivals in the U.S. and in Europe, including those in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium.  You can see and hear one of her YouTube videos here - Prokofiev's Second Concerto, one of my favorites.  Her violin is an 1856 Giuseppe Rocca.