Ioana Mândrescu

Ioana Mândrescu is a Romanian born sound artist and musician. She is a classical pianist and completed her music studies in her home country, France and Belgium. Her interest in contemporary music was stirred during the time spent at École Normale de Musique 'Alfred Cortot' in Paris. This led to the foundation of two contemporary music groups, Quivir Ensemble, based in Spain and Switzerland and Opia Ensemble, based in Belgium. Strongly influenced by choreography and painting, in the past years she developed, together with her groups, performances that brought together sound, film and dance. They were presented in Belgium – Bozar Opening Night 2015, Festival Courants d'Airs, Poland – FAMA Festival and Iran – First Edition of the Contemporary Music Festival in Tehran. Her life-long involvement with music and her interest in field recordings and the universe of digital sound manipulation led her naturally towards sound art, which led her to study at EPAS programme in Ghent (BE), graduating in 2018. Her main interests are the human voice and human produced sounds and their impact on the way we perceive the world. She is currently working on a database of human voices and on several sound-collage pieces that mark distinct moments in human history.