Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu dazzles audiences and critics worldwide with her effortless musicality and captivating stage presence. The BBC Music Magazine praised her “magnificently projected playing” as “enormously impressive”, and Seen and Heard International applauded her “impressive endurance, technical virtuosity, flamboyance and brio”.

From recent appearances in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Royal Albert Hall London and Musikverein Wien, she has just finished touring with the European Union Youth Orchestra under the baton of Vasily Petrenko after celebrating a range of acclaimed debuts in North America with the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, Utah Symphony Orchestra and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.

After the successful premiere of Dariescu’s own production The Nutcracker and I, by Alexandra Dariescu – a ground-breaking multimedia performance created for piano solo with dance and digital animation – at Barbican’s Milton Court in December 2017, Alexandra will take the Nutcracker on tour across Europe including performances at Konzerthaus Wien, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Bozar Brussels, Philharmonie Luxembourg amongst others as well as several stops in China and Australia. In addition, she just released the accompanying CD and book of the same name on the Signum label.

Dariescu’s 2018/19 season marks more important milestones including her debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of James Gaffigan, performing French composer Nadia Boulanger’s Fantaisie variée as part of the BBC’s Total Immersion programme focusing on the Boulanger sisters on 6 April 2019 at London’s Barbican Centre.  Further highlights include concerts with the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle and Daniel Huppert and a recital at Wigmore Hall where Dariescu will continue to triumph works by female composers such as Germaine Tailleferre and Lili Boulanger.

This season will see Alexandra complete her trilogy recording of Messiaen and Faure preludes which compliments the previously released CDs of Chopin/Dutilleux and Shostakovich/Szymanowski preludes (Champs Hill Records). The 2016 release of Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto No. 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev’s concert suite of arrangements from The Nutcracker (Signum Records) received high praise. 

Always curious to continue learning, Alexandra receives advice and guidance from Sir András Schiff. She has been mentored by Imogen Cooper through the Royal Philharmonic Society/YCAT Philip Langridge Mentoring Scheme. A former artist of Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) she was a Laureate at the Verbier Festival Academy. In 2013 Alexandra received the UK’s Women of the Future Award in the Arts and Culture category. She became the youngest musician to receive the Custodian of the Romanian Crown Medal and in 2017 was presented with the Radio Romania’s Cultural Award. In 2017 Alexandra was appointed patron of Music in Lyddington. A former graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, as well as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Alexandra was appointed an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Northern College of Music in 2016. In spring 2018, she received the “Officer of the Romanian Crown”.

“Utterly charming and totally engaging"

– Seeing Dance

“Warm and virtuosic, tender and expressive”

– Classical Source