Ралука Щирбъц

Ten years old, Raluca Știrbăț made her debut with Haydn's D major concerto and the Moldova Symphony Orchestra of her native Iași, having begun the piano at six; concerts with the Bucharest Radio Symphony and the Kishinev Philharmonic followed. In June 1994 she was admitted to the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she studied with Jürg von Vintschger, and she has taken prizes at Ústí nad Labem, The Golden Lyra and the Jeunesses Musicales. Romanian music, and George Enescu above all, has been her subject as much as her repertoire: she has recorded his complete piano works, written about him, and led the campaign to save and restore his house at Mihăileni, which had been left to fall down. She recorded Chopin's Second Piano Concerto with the Plovdiv Philharmonic under Nayden Todorov for Music Minus One. Stirbat appeared as a piano soloist at the Thracia Summer Music Festival in Plovdiv in 1999.