THE ESCAPE
Since my early childhood I have loved classical music, and already as a little Carmen I couldn’t get enough of the Beethoven and Mozart records that my Mum – then a sound engineer at Bucharest’s radio station – brought home to me. Soon a piano also entered the house, and these 88 keys became the centre of my life and my great love.
When I was 7, my parents fled from the Ceausescu regime with me. We escaped via Israel and Italy to Germany, which then became our new home. There we had a piano even before we had furniture – a beautiful small “Bechstein” on which I tried to copy my idol Arthur Rubinstein.
From music college to life in a band and back again
At the age of ten I was accepted by Prof. Ulla Graf as a junior student at Aachen Academy of Music. In the years that followed I won numerous competitions and awards, played concerts in an orchestra and as a soloist. When I turned 18, I no longer wanted to be limited by genre boundaries and rules anymore, neither in music nor in life. The next ten years I was a keyboardist in various bands, this was a moving, exciting – and yes, even crazy time. Good music touches the soul, no matter what genre it is supposed to belong to. My soul is touched by Debussy, Poulenc, Brahms and Chopin, but also by Chick Corea and Bill Evans. And so I started studying piano at Cologne Academy of Music and graduated with honours.
In the musical city of Leipzig
Then I made my home in Leipzig. In this wonderful city of music I played with soloists from the Gewandhaus, the MDR Orchestra and Sinfonia London, and I made friends for life. In Leipzig I discovered my passion for song accompaniment through fantastic singers like Carolin Masur or Laetitia Grimaldi Spitzer. There I also got to know the wonderful pianist Irwin Gage, who supported and inspired me for several years in his master classes in Florence. A special award for the best Poulenc interpretation at the International Grieg Competition in Oslo for piano duo with pianist Juliane Tautz crowned this period of my life in music.
On Unconventional Solo Paths in the Rhineland
Eventually, in 2011, I was drawn back to the Rhineland. Since then, I have been living and teaching in Cologne. It was here that I recorded my first solo CD “Kaleidoscope of Life”; here that I met clarinetist Pamela Coats, with whom I released *Paris mon Amour*; and here that I found the GOLDKORN ensemble, with whom I create genre-spanning music that touches the soul.
My collaboration with the label Prospero Classical began with “The Voice of Piano” (2024), an album of song arrangements. “Shapes of Water” – a musical homage to the essence of water: still, flowing, powerful, and ever-changing – will also be released there in the autumn of 2025.
Straight paths and pre-marked trails have always been suspect to me. That is how I found my own path – full of detours, wonderfully unconventional. “Detours broaden one’s knowledge of a place” – Kurt Tucholsky knew that long ago.
“…sparklingly brilliant, profound, and captivating.”
Jan Sting, Kölnische Rundschau 1/26
„…meistert die fingerbrecherischen Herausforderungen mit Leichtigkeit und Eleganz.”
Klassik Heute 1/26
„Mehr Rubinstein als Benedetti Michelangeli sozusagen.”
Fono Forum 4/26
“Stefanescu führt uns hochvirtuos und mit Pianistischer Vollkommenheit durch diese Welt. Sie lässt uns hören, dass viele der Inhalte und die Intensität der Musik mit ihrem Leben verbunden sind. So ergibt sich eine in der heutigen Klavierwelt seltene Harmonie zwischen technischer Perfektion und inhaltlichem Erleben. Sie ist die große Verwirklichung des urmusikalischen und urkünstlerischen Gedankens.”
Aus Pianist 3/24 über „The Voice of Piano“
“Das Verblüffende: Carmen Stefanescu überzeugt wirklich in jedem Stück dieser breiten Stilvielfalt. Sei es romantische Innigkeit, sei es impressionistische Traumwelten, seien es Varianten aus der Folklore: sie durchdringt differenziert die jeweiligen Ausdrucksformen. Ein Doppelalbum, mit dem man immer wieder gerne auf Klangreise gehen möchte.”
Aus Concerti 5.8.24
“Mit diesem Album knüpft Stefanescu gekonnt an das kantable Spiel der großen, romantischen Pianisten wie dem von ihr zutiefst verehrten Arthur Rubinstein an. Und zeigt, dass man auch auf dem Flügel singen kann – wenn man nur weiß, wie.”
Aus Rondo 4/2024
“In weit gefächerten Liedtranskriptionen… zeigt Stefanescu auf Anhieb ihr immenses Gespür für Kantabilität, agogisch flexibles und atmendes Gestalten, aber auch für sensitive, atmosphärenreiche Klangschichtungen.”
Aus Piano News 6/24
„Carmen Stefanescu – eine klangsensible, in ihre Klänge hineinhorchende Pianistin, die mit Debussys „Images“ das Publikum verzauberte und aus der ‚Hommage à Rameau’ geradezu ein musikalisches Narkotikum machte. Ein beglückender Abend.”
Aachener Volkszeitung