Adrian Mantu

Adrian MANTU
cellist
Member of the ConTempo String Quartet,
Galway Ensemble-in-Residence
Co-Artistic Director, Galway Music Residency
Member of the Board of Directors, Summer Music on Shannon/Galway
Visiting teacher, Icon Arts Academy.
 
Adrian was born in Bucharest and is a post-graduate of the University of Music in Bucharest. His studies continued at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Royal Academy of Music in London, Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sophia in Madrid and European Academy of Music in Aix-en-Provence where he studied with Stefan Popov, Zara Nelsova, Radu Aldulescu, Lawrence Lesser and Marin Cazacu.
 
He also studied and worked in various string quartet master classes with members of the Amadeus, Alban Berg, Hagen, Tokyo and Emerson Quartets.
 
In 1999 the ConTempo Quartet was offered a Senior Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where each member coached chamber music groups at undergraduate and post graduate levels.
 
In 2003, after an international audition, Adrian and his colleagues from ConTempo became Galway’s Quartet-in-Residence on the west coast of Ireland, a job sponsored by the National University of Galway, the National TV Channel TG4 & the Arts Council.
 
Adrian won many national competitions all over Romania and two prizes in International Cello Competitions in Bucharest and Sofia. As a member of the ConTempo String Quartet he has won a record of 14 international prizes in competitions such as London, Munich, Hamburg, Rome, Graz, Berlin, Bucharest & Prague.
 
Adrian has a busy schedule of more than 80 concerts a year and he has performed, on his own or with the ConTempo Quartet, all over the world including Concerts as Soloist with Orchestras in Germany, Italy, Romania, Austria, France, Canada, Bulgaria & UK (where he played concertos by J.Ch.Bach, Ph.E. Bach, Boccherini, Vivaldi, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Lalo, Saint-Saens, Schumann, Tschaikovsky, Dvorak, Elgar, Bernstein, Korngold, Piazzola etc.) and Chamber Music Recitals in Carnegie Hall in NY, Wigmore Hall and St.Martin-in-the-Fields in London, Berliner Philarmoniker, Waterfront in Belfast, Max Joseph Saal in Munich, Theatre Chatelet and Festival Clasique-au-Vert in Paris, Auditorium in Brussels, Gedai University in Tokio, Opera House in Tel-Aviv, Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, King’s Lynn Festival (where ConTempo played with London’s Royal Philarmonic Orchestra Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro),Stockholm, National Concert Hall in Dublin, San Marino, Toronto, Madrid, Rome, Lisbon, Vatican, Amsterdam, Graz, Beijing and Bucharest.
 
Adrian and his colleagues from ConTempo had the honor to perform for personalities such us Prince Charles, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and the EU Ministers.
 
As a member of the ConTempo Quartet Adrian recorded for BBC, RTE, Lyric FM, Radio France Musique, TV Mezzo, RAI, ORF, TVR and for the CD Companies: Sonny, Universal,  DeutscheSchalplatten, Somm etc.
 
ConTempo recorded also the music for Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’s TV Drama Band of Brothers and featured in Bob Quinn's film "ConTempo goes West".
 
Adrian composed, arranged and recorded the music for the “Trop tard” movie, who was selected for the Cannes Festival in France,(Director Lucian Pintilie) and for the “La Dame aux camélias” play for the National Theatre in Bucharest (where he was collaborating with the famous actress Maia Morgenstern from Mel Gibson's "The passion of the Christ").
 
Collaboration with different artists and musical genres is a very important part of Adrian's musical life. So thats why he is very often seen playing on a baroque cello either early, renaissance or  baroque music. He is also keen on jazz music as well as argentinean & brazilian music where he is playing either modern or electric cello.
In the last two years he has premiered 37 new works of Irish composers
He was joined in his concerts by well known artists as: Emma Johnson - clarinet, members of Amadeus, Arditti, Casals, Vanbrugh & Balanescu quartets, pianists: Barry Douglas, John O'Conor, Hugh Tinny & Finghinian Collins / piano etc.
 
Adrian was holding international courses in Ireland (Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin,  DIT, ConTempo Summer School in Galway, Termonfeckin Chamber Music Weekends, Concorda, Summer Music on the Shannon etc.) Romania (Sibiu, Brasov & Bucharest), Italy(Rome), UK(London, Reading) & Japan (Tokyo).
 
 
Before embarking on a solo/chamber music career, Adrian hold the principal cello position in both "George Enescu National State Orchestra" in Bucharest, Romania and in "Philarmonie der Nationen" Hamburgh, Germany.