Well-known to Irish audiences as violinist, collaborator, educator and Leader of the Ulster Orchestra, Ioana’s 25/26 performance highlights include touring Ireland with Lumiere Quartet on period instruments, presenting new music in Chile with the Hard Rain Soloists Ensemble, guest-leading Irish National Opera in Smetana’s Bartered Bride, and joining the Ulster Orchestra as soloist for The Lark Ascending. 

Ioana has performed a considerable number of solo works with orchestra on both modern and period instruments, including many of the great concertos as well as virtuosic works, commissions and premieres of new music. She has toured Europe, US, South America and Asia in various chamber ensembles as first violin, while alongside her role at UO, Ioana also features as Guest Leader with a variety of orchestras at home and abroad. She is a permanent member of the string faculty at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and regularly appears as panellist and jury member on competitions, examination boards, and Arts Councils both North and South. 

Chamber collaborations have been with artists as diverse as Barry Douglas (piano), John Abercrombie (jazz guitarist), Martin Hayes (trad fiddle) and Arcade Fire (indie rock), and Ioana is a long-standing member of Musici Ireland, collaboratively presenting original inter-disciplinary work in complement to their core chamber repertoire.

In recent years, Ioana’s creative curiosity has also opened new doors. An emerging visual artist, her drawing has featured in both the RUA Belfast and RHA Dublin Annual Exhibitions, and she looks forward to her first solo exhibition this coming summer. Meanwhile, in Fingerprints, an 'interdisciplinary, immersive performance experience’, Ioana explores the relationships between sound and image through her violin and viola in collaborative improvisation.

Ioana plays a Gioffredo Cappa violin built in 1695, and proudly owns a very special bow made for her by her father and first violin teacher, Adrian Petcu.