Winner of George Enescu International Violin Competition 2022 and named Instrumentalist of the Year 2024 by the Union of Musical Cristics, Editors and Producers from Romania, Maria Marica was born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in a family of musicians and started playing the violin at the age of seven. She studied with Vasile Socea and NicuÈ™or Silaghi in her hometown and she is currently studying with David Grimal and Krzysztof Chorzelski at the Hochschule für Musik Saarbrücken, Germany.
Maria has played recitals and concerts all over Romania, as well as in France, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Germany and the United States. She has had the chance to play chamber music alongside great artists like Frans Helmerson, Marc Coppey, David Grimal, Boris Brovtsyn, Sergey Malov, Victor Julien Laferrière, Solenne Païdassi, Philippe Cassard, among others, and in November 2023 her recital at the Romanian Atheneum in Bucharest was included in the European Broadcasting Union's Top Young Performers Program.
Passionate about symphonic repertoire, she is a member of the ensemble Les Dissonances and she was also a member of the Romanian Youth Orchestra, which has had the chance to perform in venues like Musikverein Vienna, Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie de Paris, Konzerthaus Berlin.
She has participated in masterclasses with musicians such as Leonidas Kavakos, Nora Chastain, Mihaela Martin, Rosanne Philippens. In 2021 she was an active member of the Violin Masterclasses in Kronberg, working with Kolja Blacher and Gerhard Schulz. Between 2014-2016 and in 2019 she was part of SoNoRo Festival’s Interferences program, working with Diana Ketler, Thorsten Johanns, Alexander Sitkovetsky, among others and in 2015 she participated in the Young Performers Program of the Music@Menlo Festival in California, USA, working with Clive Greensmith, Erin Keefe, Arnaud Sussmann, members of the Escher Quartet and the Dover Quartet, and others.
Maria has previously been sponsored by the Fondation Constance et Andrei Rhoe, by MOL Romania and by the Union of Romanian Performers and she is currently sponsored through Deutschlandstipendium. She plays a violin by August Sébastien Philippe Bernardel from 1845 that belonged to Suzanne Gessner and she also owns a modern instrument by Romanian luthier Niculae Vădan.