About
The Vienna-based Romanian Pianist Adela Liculescu is one of the most active musicians of her generation: international awarded soloist, a very demanded chamber musician and active as an artistic researcher.
Education: Adela began her piano studies when she was four. She studied piano performance and chamber music with distinction at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and received also tuition in composition, music theory and conducting at the same institution. At the moment she is pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, where she researches the concept of virtuosity in Franz Liszt’s music. The main mentors during her studies are Milana Chernyavska, Avedis Kouyomdjian, Martin Hughes, Stefan Mendl and Mihai Ungureanu. She also perfectioned her musicianship in further masterclasses with artists like Thomas Adès and Arie Vardi.
Activity as a soloist: Adela played recitals and concerts in Berlin (Berliner Philharmonie), München (Philharmonie Gasteig), St. Petersburg (Philharmonic), Vienna (Musikverein, Konzerthaus, MuTh), London (Saint Martin-in-the-Fields), Bucharest (Romanian Athenaeum, Radio-Hall, George Enescu National Museum) and many other concert halls in Europe, Asia and America.
Among the orchestras with which she worked, are: das neue Deutsche Sinfonieorchester Berlin, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Dogma Chamber Orchestra Deutschland, Wieniawski Philharmonic Orchestra Poland, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Bucharest, the Philharmonic Orchestra Bucharest, Royal Chamber Orchestra of Romania, Alma Mahler Philharmonie Wien etc.
Activity as a chamber musician: Adela is a very passionate chamber musician. She is the pianist in the piano quintet Philharmonic Five, with members of the Vienna Philharmonic (Tibor Kovac, Lara Kusztrich, Holger Tautscher-Groh, Orfeo Mandozzi). With this Ensemble she performed at the opening of the Salzburg Festival 2021 and she performs a subscription series in Konzerthaus Vienna.
Other regular chamber music partners are Ioana Cristina Goicea and Kirill Maximov (violin). Furthermore, she performed in chamber ensembles with musicians like Alexander Sitkovetsky, Barnabás Kelemen, Albena Danailova, Maxim Rysanov, Maria Kliegel, Reinhard Latzko, Boris Andrianov, László Fenyö etc.
Her extensive chamber music repertoire includes numerous works in several settings from duo up to sextet.
Piano Competitions: Adela Liculescu won several prizes in piano competitions: the most recent one is the second prize at the International Enescu Piano Competition Bucharest 2021, where she performed Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto in the final stage with the Philharmonic Bucharest and the conductor John Axelrod in the Romanian Athenaeum Bucharest. She won the first prize at Prix du Piano Bern 2018. In September 2017 she won in less than two weeks the first prize in both existing Brahms Competitions (Pörtschach, Austria and Detmold, Germany). In Pörtschach she also won the audience prize and in Detmold she won several special prizes as well, among them a professional CD recording. Also in 2017 she won the Yamaha Music Prize Austria. In 2015 she won the first prize at the Bösendorfer Competition in Vienna – on this occasion she performed in the final round Beethoven Second Piano Concerto in the concert theatre of the Schönbrunn Palace with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and conductor Stefan Vladar.
Awards and Honours: In 2020 she was awarded the Beethoven Prize by the Romanian National Culture Radio. In 2016 she was awarded the Prize „Romanian Student in the Arts Category“ at a ceremony which took place at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest.
Adela was a scholarship holder by the Music Academy in Liechtenstein, the Thyll-Dürr Foundation of Switzerland, the Tokyo Foundation and the Beethoven Society of Vienna.
Adela Liculescu is an Official Bösendorfer Artist.