Biography

Eva started playing the violin at the age of seven in Saint-George, Romania. At the age of 13 she went to Cluj-Napoca, to attend one of the main music schools in Romania, where she graduated in 2008. She has also spent a year at the Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh as an exchange student. She completed her undergraduate degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with first class honours.

She regularly attends summer-courses in Holland, Hungary, Italy and she has performed in masterclasses given by Ivry Gitlis, Ilya Gringolts, Priya Mitchell, Daniel Rowland and Kelemen Barnabas as well as chamber music masterclasses by the Brodsky and Szymanowski Quartet, Andrew Manze and Peter Manning. She has also been invited to the prestigious Mendelssohn on Mull Festival.

As well as winning various string prizes and competitions (such as the Hilda Bailey Prize and the Ian D Watt Award) Eva has won chamber music competitions with the Csengele Quartet, of which she is a founding member. The quartet was invited, with pianist Pearl-Lynne Chen, to attend Aldeburgh Festival to play the Schumann Quintet in masterclasses with Menahem Pressler. Since then, Eva has joined the Arbellio Quartet with whom she attended the well-known Trondheim Chamber Music Academy, receiving masterclasses from Hatto Beyerle and members of the Ebene Quartet.

Over the years she held several scholarships and awards such as the Silvestri Scholarship, Betty MacPherson Prize and most recently the ABRSM Macklin Bursary.

In her free time Eva very much enjoys cycling, reading and a spot of DIY.

Education

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Glasgow, UK

Quickfire Questions

What or who inspired you to become a professional musician?
In the first instance my father inspired me to become a musician. I always liked chamber music, but after arriving in Glasgow four years ago and meeting and hearing the Brodsky Quartet, I could say they inspired me to want to become such a musician. On another level having played with the Scottish Ensemble has also made me want to become a musician who can experience playing with other great musicians on a daily or weekly basis. I feel there is no greater joy in music-making then sharing it with other people in various ways and circumstances.

Which three people, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with and why?

Dinner for four: Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby, Eddie Izzard and Frigyes Karinthy (Hungarian author) and myself. I would be interested in what these three characters would say about different topics, such as music, politics, old times-new times, life and I think I would get to laugh a lot (something I really like to do). However, I would very much like to have a dinner with some deceased composers too, because I am so interested in knowing how they composed. Choosing just a few would prove to be very difficult though, so I went for the other group.