Cristina Stanescu is an internationally respected collaborative pianist, vocal coach, and private teacher of classical pianists. Dr Stanescu has performed concerti and recitals around the world and has a passion for working with singers and pianists to advance the artistry of this unique musical partnership.
As a vocal coach, she specializes in helping all musicians extract the artistry from the marriage of poetry and music that is art song and opera. Her extensive knowledge of the art song and operatic repertoire from the Baroque to 21st century works in Italian, German, French, Russian and English and other languages.
As a recitalist, Cristina has worked closely with singers such as Stephanie Blythe, Anthony Roth Constanzo, Anthony Griffey, Angelika Kirchschläger, Magdelana Kožená, Theo Lebow, Bejun Mehta, Lucy Shelton, Nadie Sierra, Veronica Villaroel, and Jon Villars as well as instrumentalists David Eggar, Hai-Ye Ni, and Patricia Sunwoo. Cristina has worked with symphony conductors including Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Gerard Schwartz and stage directors Colin Graham, Jonathan Miller and Peter Sellars.
Cristina is the founding director of the Collaborative Piano Department at the Mannes College of Music New School University. In addition to teaching, she has programmed, produced and prepared an "Evenings of Song" series for over 22 years. These are multimedia events featuring singer and pianist duos exploring the artsong traditions from around the world and across time. Cristina also teaches and coaches at the Manhattan School of Music, has prepared vocal concerts at The Juilliard School and works with artists from around the world in her private studio and online. Previously, she held faculty appointments at Yale University, New York University, the Bucharest Academy of Music, Harlem Boys Choir, and the Renata Scotto Opera Academy summer program.
She has prepared her piano and vocal students to advance in international competitions such as Das Lied, Nadia and Lilli Boulanger International Singing and Piano Competition, Naumburg Competiton and the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions. Her students have also earned placements in the MET Lindemann program, San Francisco Opera Merola Program, Berlin Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Amsterdam Opera, and as Broadway conductors.
Cristina has conducted from the keyboard, coached, or prepared over 20 operas for institutions such as the Mostly Mozart Festival, Juilliard Opera Center, Yale Opera, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes Opera and was an assistant conductor for seven years at the Lyric Theatre of Craiova (Romania).
Her love of music has seen her serve on the board of Joy of Singing and discover and help turn the summer home of Bela Bartok into a museum. In the latter case, she convinced the local population to renovate and preserve the home and performed benefit concerts to help raise the funds to do so. In December of 2023, she helped increase the knowledge about a song cycle by Udo Zimmerman called"Hiroshima Lieder" recording them with soprano Elizabeth De Trejo.