Livia Teodorescu-Ciocanea is a Romanian composer and pianist, Professor PhD for composition, forms, analysis and stylistics at the National University of Music Bucharest. Her music explores spectralism, neo-impressionism and postmodernism to a powerful lyric and dramatic effect. She held the title of Adjunct Associate Professor (Research) at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, at Monash University Australia, between 2017 and 2021, currently being Affiliate Professor. In 2022 she was elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts based in Salzburg. For a brief period, in 2021, she undertook the position of artistic director of the Bucharest National Opera. Since 2021 she is a Price artist.

Teodorescu studied composition with Myriam Marbe (bachelor degree), Anatol Vieru (doctoral studies) and Margaret Lucy Wilkins (UK, doctoral studies). She is a member of the Union of Composers and Musicologists in Romania, and her music has been performed in the USA, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and across Europe, and by leading orchestras in Romania, including the George Enescu Philharmonic, National Radio and Chamber Radio Orchestras and the Orchestra of Bucharest National Opera. She has been awarded a variety of prestigious prizes for her work as a composer, including those of the Union of Composers and Musicologists in Romania in 2001 (for the ballet Le rouge et le noir), 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2016. In 2008 she was awarded the ‘George Enescu’ Romanian Academy Award for Romulus and Remus (a trio for two violins and piano) and, in the same year, the National Order ‘Cultural Merit’ (Knight Grade). She has written a large number of works for various ensembles, vocal and symphonic. Her major works include: The Lady with the dog (2015 rev. 2021) after Chekhov, opera in 4 acts; Le Rouge et le Noir (2000) ballet in 3 acts after Stendhal, Archimedes Symphony (2011 rev. 2017), Rite for enchanting the Air – Flute(s) concerto (1998, premiered by Pierre-Yves Artaud) and Mysterium tremendum – cantata for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2016). Her scores have been published by Editura muzicală Bucharest, ArsPublica (Italy) and Hoeflich (Germany). Commercial recordings of her music have featured on Toccata Classics: TOCC0448, TOCC0595, TOCC0668 (United Kingdom), Move Records (Australia), and Electrecord (Romania). The Toccata album Livia Teodorescu Ciocanea – Le Rouge et le Noir was included in the Want List (Top 5 selection Fanfare Magazine) for the year 2021 by Colin Clarke. Her Archimedes Symphony featured on the Toccata album Livia Teodorescu Ciocanea – Orchestral works was ranked first in the top 10 Best classical music of the year 2023 in the American Journal The Absolute Sound and in the Top 5 selection for Fanfare Magazine 2023 by reviewer Peter Burwasser.

In 2008 she won an Australian Federal Government grant – the Endeavour Award Postdoctoral Research Fellowship – which was undertaken at Monash University. She has presented conferences in UK (1996, 1999), Norway (2005) USA (2003, 2005, 2006) and Australia (2008). She has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Illinois-Champagne, USA, 2006, Oslo Academy of Music (2005) and Monash University Australia (2008).

Livia Teodorescu is also a concert pianist and she worked for the Bucharest National Opera as accompanist between 1985-2001. She studied piano with Ana Pitiș and Ioana Minei and attended the piano master-classes given by Zoltán Kocsis and Imre Rohmann in the ‘Bartók Seminar’ in Szombathely, Hungary. As a concert pianist she has performed many classical and modern works of the solo and duo repertoire and has accompanied numerous vocal and instrumental recitals. She has played solo recitals (with Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, Liszt and Schubert among the composers featured) in Romania, Italy and France, and concertos with several Romanian orchestras. She gave the Romanian premiere of two major works by Messiaen: Visions de l'Amen for two pianos (with Luminița Berariu) and the piano-solo part of the Turangalîla Symphony with the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest conducted by Alain Pâris. In 2011 she performed her second Piano Concerto Lebenskraft with the G. Enescu Philharmonic conducted by Paul Nadler.

As a musicologist, she has published three books: Musical Timbre – Composition Strategies (Editura Muzicală, Bucharest, 2004), Treatise of Musical Forms and Analysis (Editura Muzicală, 2005, and Grafoart, Bucharest, 2014) and Streams of Thought in the Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries (Editura Muzicală, 2015). She has published articles as a single author in Contemporary Music Review (Routledge, 2003) and Proceedings of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2022) and Tempo – Cambridge University Press. She co-authored articles with Joel Crotty in Perspectives of New Music (2020, released in 2021) and Journal of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music (2014).

Meet the Bayberry String Quartet:

The Bayberry String Quartet is emerging onto the concert scene with recent appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Chautauqua Institute. Other recent concerts include performances at the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s CMS Kids, Ridotto Series, White Lake Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music @ AEIVA, and Fairlane Music Guild, among others. Only in their sixth season, they have enjoyed residencies at the Chicago Suzuki Institute, STEP Birmingham Chamber Music Workshop, Peaks to Plains Institute in Colorado, and PhoenixPhest in Michigan. They have an innovative virtual presence through online collaboration and videos, including work with arranger Rami Vamos and drummer Pete Siers to perform “Frankenstein” by the Edgar Winter Group. BSQ also created a virtual chamber music approach in a program called PhoenixPhest Virtual where they coached student and professional groups across North America in a dozen online workshops. Through their individual and collaborative work, the four musicians have impacted the lives of thousands of musicians.

In June of 2024, BSQ released an album of early Mozart quartets titled “Only Mozarts in the Building.”