Ovidiu Marinescu

Versatile artist Ovidiu Marinescu has pursued parallel paths as cellist, conductor, composer, and teacher. His engagements have extended beyond Romania into the United States, Western Europe, and Russia, where he has directed multiple recordings of American repertoire.

Born in Bucharest in 1965 and unrelated to the film producer who shares his name, Marinescu spent his early childhood with four relatives in a single-room apartment heated by a wood stove and without indoor plumbing. After passing a vocal audition he received permission to study music; Communist regulations restricted third-graders to the cello, so he began on that instrument and soon entered Bucharest’s specialized George Enescu Music High School. He continued at the National University of Music Bucharest, where he earned two first prizes in the George Dima Cello Competition. Following the collapse of Communism he left for the United States in 1991 carrying only twenty dollars. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee he completed a master’s degree with Wolfgang Laufer of the Fine Arts Quartet, then earned a doctorate at Temple University under Orlando Cole.

Romania’s post-Communist authorities did not penalize his departure and instead invited him to perform at Carnegie Hall during Romanian President Emil Constantinescu’s visit. He subsequently appeared with the New York Chamber Symphony in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Op. 56, and with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra during engagements in Russia. Remaining active there as conductor, he made his recording debut in 2006 with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, leading Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64, and Marche Slav, Op. 31, and later recorded additional American works with the same ensemble.

On the faculty of Pennsylvania’s West Chester University he teaches cello, coaches chamber groups, and directs the West Chester University Symphony, which he has led at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Hall and on European tours. He has also toured Europe with the Delaware Chamber Orchestra, conducted the Rebecca Davis Ballet Company Orchestra in Philadelphia, led the Wilmington Orchestra, served as music director of New Jersey’s Immaculata Symphony and Manalapan Orchestra, and held the post of principal conductor of the Goppisberg Festival Orchestra in Switzerland. As a soloist he has given recitals at Merkin Hall in New York and in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, performed the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto with the National Orchestra of Romania in a nationwide live broadcast, and appeared as concerto soloist with the Newark Symphony in New Jersey, the Cleveland Philharmonic, and the Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain, among other ensembles.

Several albums on the Navona label document his work, including a recording of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. In 2023 he released London Cello Connection with the London Symphony Orchestra on the same label.