Speaking of his own son, Lord Yehudi Menuhin once said that the path chosen by the former was almost hopeless, given the intense competition that exists in a musical world where even exceptional pianists are commonplace. 

   Even if such thoughts arise from an objective situation that has existed for many decades, the fact that the world of high performance pianists has not reached a terminus is precisely due to each individual artist’s ineffable threshold of sensibility.

   It would be a shame to write about Alexandra Costin only in terms of the objective reality of her piano playing, her unostentatious technical perfection combined with a sensibility and personality that seem meticulously to accompany more and more layers of her musical performance. 

   In a state which might be likened to springtime, as a pianist she is now at that paradoxical age of certitudes and open roads.  Whether in orchestral or chamber pieces, the music of Alexandra Costin – since we may speak of her music, the music proper to any performer who has something to say through the medium of his or her instrument – rewards in its sincerity all those who have the curiosity to listen.

   Her musical performance, which we might more appropriately name the joy of playing, provides a counterpoint to a modern world that is always in a hurry, that is inherently superficial and fatally marked by the merciless spectre of monotony.  The logic of her phrasing, her temperament, her coloration represent a sum of fortunate occurrences in which talent has borne fruit due to a musical education at the highest level as well as this young pianist’s unconditional preparedness to assume the sweet pain of great performance.  Alexandra Costin is thus a Romanian in the bloodline of a talented people that has given the world great pianists such as Dinu Lipatti.

   Alexandra Costin began studying the piano at the age of five and followed the trajectory usual in Bucharest, going from Lyceum to the National University of Music.  She graduated from University in the class of Dana Borsan.  Between 1995 and 2002, she received scholqrships to the Cervo Summer Academy, the International Music Academy in Nice and the Vienna Music Seminar.  After finishing her studies, she spent a year at the Salzburg Mozarteum, as the recipient of an Erasmus scholarship.

   At the age of twenty-three, her professional career took a path that can not be said to have been common until recently: she took a Master of Musical Arts Degree (in Piano Performance) at Baylor University (USA), in the class of professor Krassimira Jordan, and is now studying for a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) Degree in Piano Performance at Boston University, in the class of Professor Anthony di Bonaventura.

   Alexandra Costin has won prizes in several national and international competitions.  She has performed in concert with the Philharmonic Orchestras of Bacãu, Ploiesti, Oradea, Arad, Târgu Mures, Craiova and Timisoara, the Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of Maracaibo (Venezuela), the National Symphonic Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie Schonebeck.  She has also given numerous recitals in Romania and abroad (in Austria, Germany, France, Greece and USA) and made many recordings for radio and television.

From April 2005 Alexandra Costin is member of the renowned Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society  (Gamma Tau Chapter).

(Costin Tuchila)