Bio : Artists
Ioana Galu : Violin II
Ioana Galu, a native of Romania, has enjoyed a national and international career in both Europe and the United States. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin performance from the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj, Romania, later joining the faculty as an assistant professor of violin and chamber music. After coming to the United States, she earned a second master’s degree in violin performance from Bowling Green State University and continued her studies at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, where she received her Artist Diploma. In 2012, Galu graduated with a doctorate in Contemporary Music from Bowling Green State University. Her most important teachers were Victoria Nicolae, Vasile Beluska, Yim Won Bin and Penny Thompson Kruse.
Galu has performed in masterclasses for the Voces String Quartet, Amernet String Quartet, Alexandru Gavrilovici, David Erlich, Stefan Milenkovich, Annette-Barbara Vogel, Kiss Ladislau, Trio Kadek, Jacques Saint-Yves, Sherban Lupu, Devics Sandor and Wolfram Just. In 2000, she earned a scholarship to study at the Academie National de Villecroze of France.
She has been awarded prizes in several national and international competitions, including Second Prize in the Mozart International Competition for Piano Trios (Romania), and First Prize and Special Prize of the SOROS Foundation at the George Enescu Violin National Competition (Romania). She also won Second Prize in the Starling Violin Competition College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati (CCM) and was the winner of the CCM Concerto Competition in February 2004.
Galu has performed recitals in Romania, Budapest (Hungary), Düsseldorf (Germany), Lyon, Villecroze (France), Bowling Green, Toledo, Cincinnati and New York City. She appeared as soloist with several orchestras in Romania and the United States, including CCM Orchestra, Heidelberg University Orchestra, Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Southern Great Lakes Symphony, Central Ohio Symphony, and the Perrysburg Symphony. Between 2006 and 2009 she served as the concertmaster of Central Ohio Symphony in Delaware, and is now the concertmaster of the Southern Great Lakes Symphony Orchestra.
Since September 2004, Galu has been on the faculty of the Heidelberg University Department of Music in Tiffin, Ohio, and was the director of the Preparatory Department between 2005 and 2009. She has been in the faculty of Eastern Music Festival since 2004.
In the summer of 2010, Galu founded the annual Romanian-American chamber music festival American Musicians in Transylvania in her hometown of Bistrita, Romania, with full support from the foundation Bistrita Society of Concerts. The festival brings together Romanian and American artists for chamber music concerts in different Transylvanian cities.