Mihaela Ursuleasa

Mihaela Ursuleasa (27 September 1978 – 2 August 2012) was a Romanian concert pianist. In 1995, she won the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition. In 2010, she was awarded the Echo Klassik award for her debut album Piano & Forte. She released her second album, Romanian Rhapsody in 2011. Ursuleasa was found dead in her Vienna home on 2 August 2012 of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 33. She is interred at the Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest.Ursuleasa began playing the piano at the age of five under the tutelage of her Romani father, a jazz musician. In 1990, at the age of 12, she obtained a grant to study in Vienna. She went on to perform at Carnegie Hall, with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester in Berlin, with the Orchestre National de France, as well as with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.Ursuleasa was memorialised by her musician colleagues, such as the violist, Maxim Rysanov, who paid homage to Ursuleasa with his 2012 album "PAVANE" and reckoned her as a wonderful musician and a very special person.