Dragos Balan

He was born in Iasi (Romania) in 1980. He received his first musical knowledge from his father, Romeo Liviu, a cellist in the orchestra of his hometown, the Moldova Philharmonic of Iasi. At the age of six, he began his studies with Dan Prelipcean, a founding member of the Voces Quartet, direct disciples of the celebrated Amadeus Quartet. During this period, he won several competitions in Romania, in cities such as Suceava, Constanta, Bacau, and Iasi.
From 1996 to 2002, he was a student at the Reina Sofía School of Music, with Maestro Frans Helmerson. In the 2001-02 academic year, he received the Diploma for the Most Outstanding Student of his Professorship from Her Majesty the Queen. He has received chamber music classes from Márta Gulyás and Antonello Farulli. In 2000, he continued his advanced studies at that School with Natalia Shakhovskaya, Tenured Professor of the Cello Professorship. At the School, he formed the Arriaga Quartet, with which he won First Prize at the Guadamora International Chamber Music Competition in Córdoba in 1999.
He performs as a soloist and as a member of chamber groups in the most prestigious halls in Spain and Europe, such as the National Auditorium of Madrid, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
He has worked with maestros such as David Geringas, Janos Starker, Bernard Greenhouse, Boris Pergamenschikov, Mikhail Khomitzer, Menahem Pressler, James Judd, José Luis García Asensio, Ralph Gothoni, Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Walter Levin, Antoni Ros Marbà, Ronald Leonard, Radovan Vlatković, Hansjörg Schellenberger, Jaime Martín, and Hatto Bayerle.
He was admitted to the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchester, where he has worked with Claudio Abbado, Frans Welzer Most, and William Conway (Principal Cello of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe), and to the Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the class of Professor Georg Faust.
He collaborates in chamber groups: Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of the Philharmonic, and Chamber Groups of the Berlin Academy. He performs with the Berlin Philharmonic in the most prestigious halls in the world, such as the Philharmonie Berlin, Covent Garden in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, Tonhalle in Zurich, BBC Proms in London, as well as in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and San Francisco, under the direction of Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, Mariss Jansons, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, David Zinman, Lorin Maazel, Christian Thielemann, and Claudio Abbado. He perfects his instrumental technique with Professor Gustav Rivinius in Saarbrücken.Since 2004, he has held the position of Solo Cello of the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, the Resident Orchestra of the Teatro Real, combining his orchestral activity with that of a soloist (Brahms double with Ara Malikian in the National Auditorium of Madrid, Haydn’s C major at the Julián Arcas Festival, among others), chamber musician (within the Real soloists cycle), and teacher: since 2008 he has been Tenured Professor of the Orchestral Perfection Professorship, Cello Speciality, of the Reina Sofía School of Music. He also teaches at the Municipal School of Pozuelo de Alarcón.
He is a founding member of the NON PROFIT Music Chamber Orchestra, sponsored by the Doctors Without Borders association.