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 Nicușor Silaghi in her hometown and she is currently studying with David Grimal at the Hochschule für Musik Saarbrücken, Germany.

 

Maria is the winner of George Enescu International Violin Competition 2022, and in June of the same year she won the New Hope Grand Prix Competition in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, thus having the chance to perform with 10 orchestras all over Romania in the 2022-2023 season. 

 

Maria has played recitals and concerts all over Romania, as well as in France, Italy, 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.

 

She is a member of Les Dissonances, the only ensemble that plays symphonic repertoire without conductor. 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.