Aida's Biography
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An eclectic and charismatic violist, Aida-Carmen Soanea won first prize at the 2005 Bucchi Viola Competition in Rome. The accolades she earned in Moscow in 2000, when she won second prize at the Bashmet Viola Competition, and the Eduart Sörening Prize she was awarded by the "Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben" Foundation in Hamburg, Germany had already established her as one of the most formidable talents of her generation. Thanks to the latter award, this soloist and chamber musician has been granted use of an extraordinary viola built by Mario del Bussetto in the 17th century for a period of ten years.
As a soloist, Aida-Carmen has appeared in such music festivals as Internationale Osterfestspiele Luzern, Rheingau Musikfestival, Musikfestspiele Sanssouci, Musikfestival Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Encuentro de Musica y Academia de Santander, and Mostly Mozart Mexico and she has performed with a variety of ensembles, including Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, English Youth Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker, Filarmonica Moldova Iasi, Capella Istropolitana, Mecklenburger Kammersolisten, and Filarmonica de Stat Sibiu. She has shared the stage playing concertos with Tabea Zimmermann at the Cité de la Musique Paris, with Renaud Capuçon at the Lucerne Spring Festival, with Tanja Becker-Bender making her debut in the big hall of the Berlin Philharmony and with Tasmin Little performing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante throughout England.
An avid chamber musician, Aida-Carmen regularly performs with such pianists as Igor Kamenz, Dana Ciocarlie, and Andreas Frölich and has shared the stage with Natalia Gutman and Kolja Blacher, as well as Reiner Kussmaul, with whom she appeared several times in the Berliner Festspielwochen. She also has been a guest at many festivals throughout Europe, such as Gloger Festspillene and Elverum Festspillene (Norway), the Festival de St. Riquier and Celle-sur-Belle (France), Oxford Chamber Music Festival and Music at Plush (UK), Amadéo Festival and Oleg Kagan Musik Fest (Germany), and many others where she has had the opportunity to collaborate with such wonderful musicians as Pryia Mitchell, the Vertavo Quartet, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Alexander Melnikov, Louise Hopkins, Jean Quilhem Queyras, Adrian Brendel …
Aida-Carmen Soanea is a founding member of the delian::quartet, which has pursued a busy schedule since its inception in 2007. Appearing at such festivals as Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, the Ludwigsburger Festspiele, and Schwetzinger Festspiele while being invited to such halls as the Vienna Musikverein, the Festspielhaus Baden Baden, the Philharmonie Essen, and the Hessischer Rundfunk Frankfurt, this young ensemble has enjoyed a great success and is often broadcast by various German radio stations. Regular guests include musicians Gérard Caussé, Dora Schwarzberg, Gilles Apap, Alfredo Perl, and Dimitri Ashkenazy, as well as actors Bruno Ganz and Armin Müller-Stahl.
In 2008, in collaboration with the pianist Igor Kamenz, the delian::quartet released a Schumann CD on the Oehms Classics label. A second CD, this time dedicated to works by Haydn and including Gilles Apap and Andreas Frölich as guest artists, will be soon available from the same label.
That same year, Aida-Carmen Soanea formed a duo with Romain Garioud. This pairing provided an opportunity to present rare and original repertory works for viola and cello. Their duo has toured very successfully throughout France and Europe. Passionately committed to the commissioning of new music, Soanea and Garioud, with their expansive sound and their virtuoso interpretations, have inspired such composers as Edith Canat de Chizy, Gabriel Iranyi, and Violeta Dinescu to compose pieces for them.
Born in Iasi, Romania into a family of singers, Aida-Carmen Soanea was a precocious musical talent in her own right who developed rapidly. Before emigrating to Germany in 1987, she studied with Mugur Popovici at the George Enescu Special Music School in Bucharest and then with Barbara Westphal at the Musikhochschule Lübeck.
Her most important musical influences came from studying with Kim Kashkashian at the Freiburg Musikhochschule and at Berlin’s “Hanns Eisler” Musikhochschule. She found new inspiration pursuing her studies as a soloist at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris with Gérard Caussé while remaining curious and open to different opinions as she enjoyed participation in the master classes of Wolfram Christ, Thomas Riebl, and, especially, Juri Bashmet.
Besides music, Aida-Carmen Soanea cultivates a keen interest in languages. In addition to her mother language, the violist speaks German, English, French, Italian and Spanish.