Pianist Dana Ciocarlie has specialized in the music of Schumann and Schubert, recording the complete keyboard works of the former in a live project. She also plays much contemporary music and is the dedicatee of several works. Ciocarlie was born in Bucharest on November 26, 1968. Her initial training was in Romania and followed the country's distinctive piano tradition exemplified by Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil. Ciocarlie moved to Paris for studies at the École normale de musique de Paris with Alfred Cortot student Viktoria Melki, and at the Conservatoire de Paris with Dominique Merlet and Georges Pludermacher. She took further classes with Christian Zacharias and Dmitri Bashkirov; the former steered her toward Schubert's music. Ciocarlie launched her career with momentum from several major prizes, including wins at the Yamaha Foundation competition (1993) and the Yvonne LeFébure Foundation's Pro Musicis prize (1996). In 1996, she also took second place at the Robert Schumann International Competition for Pianists and Singers in Zwickau, Germany, beginning a long engagement with Schumann's music. Ciocarlie began her recording career with the album Romania on the L'Empreinte Digitale label in 2000. She has performed in major French halls such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, outside of France in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and in concerts as far afield as Japan, the U.S., Indonesia, and the Philippines. A frequent chamber music performer, she has collaborated with musicians and groups, including pianists Zacharias and Anne Quéffelec, and the Diotima and Talich Quartets, among others. Ciocarlie is a strong advocate of contemporary music and has performed works written for her by Édith Canat de Chizy, Karol Beffa, Nicolas Bacri, and many other composers. She has recorded more than ten albums, including a complete cycle of Schumann's piano works recorded live at concerts in Paris between 2012 and 2016. In 2021, she was heard on the chamber music album Bubbles on the La Dolce Volta label. Ciocarlie teaches chamber music at the Conservatoire national supérieur musique et danse de Lyon and is also on the faculty at the and École normale de Paris. ~ James Manheim, Rovi