Mihaela Ursuleasa opened 2008/2009 with her first performance at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival playing two concerts with the Festival Orchestra under Osmo Vänska and two recitals. Further highlights included a return to the Orchestre National de France conducted by Daniele Gatti, appearance with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Barcelona under Hans Graf and with the Basel Sinfonietta. In recital she returned to Vienna’s Konzerthaus, the Laieszhalle Hamburg and the chamber music series in Luxembourg. )..In March of 2009 she returned to the Pablo Casals Festival San Juan to perform the Rachmaninoff 4th Concerto with the Festival Orchestra with Max Valdes conducting and also to perform again in recital at the festival. In March 2009 she also returned to Canada to perform Beethoven 3 with Les Violons du Roy with Bernard Labadie conducting.
In August of 2009, she makes her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl performing the Tchaikowsky 1st Concerto and in October of 2009, the German label, EDEL(EDEL Kultur based in Hamburg) will released a solo CD featuring works by Beethoven, Brahms, Ravel and Ginastera. Aside from her recitals and chamber music concerts which will take her among other places to Munich, Zurich and Bad Kissingen, she will appear in the 9/10 season with such orchestras as the Orchester der Komische Oper and Carl St. Clair in Berlin, Camerata Salzburg and Bruno Weil in Vienna and Munich and Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia Palacio de la Ópera and Salvador Mas Conde.
Last season she made debut appearances with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris under Andris Nelsons and also with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg conducted by John Storgårds, where her playing was compared to that of Martha Argerich.
Mihaela Ursuleasa has appeared with the Concertgebouw under the direction of Kurt Sanderling, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Weimar Staatskapelle. She made her Paris concerto debut with the Orchestre National de Paris and Sir Colin Davis and her Salzburg debut with the Mozarteum Orchestra. Her first tour of Germany was undertaken with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie under Paavo Järvi. She has also toured with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Sir Neville Marriner, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with Neeme Järvi.
Following her spectacular North American debut in 2005, Ursuleasa recently returned to perform recitals in San Francisco, Cincinnati, Minneapolis and Philadelphia. She appeared with Vancouver Symphony under Hugh Wolff and with New Jersey Symphony under Neeme Järvi.
An ardent chamber musician, 2008/09 sees Mihaela Ursuleasa perform with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja at Gstaad’s Menuhin Festival, Vienna’s and Dortmund’s Konzerthaus. Joined by cellist Sol Gabetta she appears at the Schubertiade Hohenems and the duo will have a strong presence in Spain and Italy (Sevilla, Varese, Genua, Treviso, Messina, Palermo Ursuleasa has also appeared at the Salzburg and Lockenhaus Festivals, Lars Vogt’s festival ‘Spannungen’ in Heimbach and at the Marlboro Music Festival in the USA.
Mihaela Ursuleasa was born in Brasov, Romania in 1978. As a teenager she won second prize at the International Piano Competition in Senigallia. Upon the advice of Claudio Abbado, Mihaela studied with Prof. Heinz Medjimorec at the Vienna Conservatory. She reaped the fruits of this decision in 1995, when she won the Clara Haskil Competition aged 16. In 1999, she graduated with a diploma cum laude.
