Mariana Sîrbu

Mariana Sîrbu (1948 or 1949 – 1 August 2023), also credited as Sârbu, was a Romanian classical violinist and academic teacher, who made an international career performing and recording. She was focused on chamber music, founding the Academica String Quartet in 1968, joining the Trio di Milano in 1985, and founding the Quartetto Stradivari in 1994. She was concertmaster of I Musici from 1993 to 2003. She became professor of violin at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig in Leipzig in 2002, gave international master classes and was juror for competitions of violin and chamber music.

Biography Origins and early life Sîrbu was born in 1948 or 1949 in the city of Iași, Romanian People's Republic. She started playing the violin under the supervision of her parents; She then went on to study professionally in her native city, at the Octav Băncilă Elementary and Medium School of Music and Arts. She took her first award locally, in 1956, In April 1962, Sîrbu performed with seven of her schoolmates at the Romanian Athenaeum student gala. She won an award for her "beautiful and clean" rendition of Saint-Saëns's Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.

Sîrbu also recorded The Four Seasons with I Musici, as many violinists (including Federico Agostini) had done; a reviewer from Gramophone found her as incisive, and her lines in the slow movements "more finely and imaginatively nuanced". Franck: Chamber Works

Competitions Sîrbu achieved prizes at international competitions including: