Andrei Pricope

Andrei Pricope was born in Bacău, Romania, in 1969. He grew up in Bucharest, Romania, and started playing the cello and piano at age ten. Following studies at the "Enescu Music High School" in Bucharest, he went to England where he graduated with honors from the Royal Northern College of Music (1994).

Andrei received his Masters of Music and Performer Certificate from Northern Illinois University (1996 and 1997, respectively) having studied with Marc Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet. He appeared in masterclasses with Janos Starker, Ralph Kirshbaum, among others. Pricope accumulated a broad range of musical experiences including performances with the Chicago Civic Orchestra (training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony), and has served as principal cello for several American orchestras, including Green Bay Symphony, Rockford Symphony and Southwest Michigan Symphony. In these capacities, he performed under such world-renonwed conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Sir Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, and Pierre Boulez. An avid chamber music performer, Pricope has performed extensively, including with members of the Chicago Symphony on WFMT radio (Chicago).

A busy studio teacher, Pricope is also founding member of the Avanti Piano Trio, The Nexus Ensemble, and the Amati Chamber Ensemble, all professional performing groups in the Chicago (USA) area.

Pricope's cello transcriptions are published by Amati Music (http://www.amati.net). They include Bach's Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Cello (orig. for violin) and Brahms' Violin and Viola Sonatas (arr. for cello), etc. Amati Music also publishes reference works in cello pedagogy under Pricope's editorship, including Duport's "Essai sur le doigté du violoncelle et la conduite de l'archet" and Romberg's "Violoncell-Schule".