Andrei Ionita, who won 1st prize at the “International Tchaikovsky Competition” in 2015, as well as prizes at the “International ARD Music Competition”, the “Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann” and the “Aram Khachaturian International Competition”, was described by The Times as “one of the most exciting cellists of this decade”. In 2016, he was selected as a “BBC New Generation Artist” for the period from 2016 to 2018.
The young cellist has already performed as a soloist with the Munich Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and has worked with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Mikhail Pletnev and Nicholas Collon.
The 2017/2018 season includes debuts with the Hallé Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony (both conducted by Cristian Macelaru), with the BBC Philharmonic (under Yan Pascal Tortelier), with the Royal Scottish Orchestra (under Karl-Heinz Steffens), the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. He will also return to the MDR Symphony Orchestra for a European tour with the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra.
Andrei Ionita has already given recitals at Carnegie Hall, on tour in Japan, at the Kissinger Sommer, at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. In February 2016 he was artist in residence at FESTIVAL NEXT GENERATION Bad Ragaz in Switzerland. The current season includes performances at Carnegie Hall, his debut at Wigmore Hall, and concerts at the Verbier Festival and Konzerthaus Berlin.
Andrei Ionita was born in Bucharest (Romania) in 1994 and started playing the piano at the age of five. Three years later he switched to the cello. He received his education first at the music school “Iosif Sava” in Bucharest with Ani-Marie Paladi and later with Prof. Jens Peter Maintz at the University of Arts Berlin, where he currently lives. He is also a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein.
As a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, Andrei Ionita is allowed to play a violoncello by Giovanni Battista Rogeri (Brescia, 1671).