Rucsandra Popescu

About

Biography | Conductor| Composer | Pianist |


@Rui Cao Photography

Rucsandra Popescu is a composer, choir conductor and pianist who lives in Bremen, but completed her first music education in her home town Bucharest, Romania. Born into a family of musicians, her father and mother being instrumentalists and also her brother, a well known jazz drummer Vlad Popescu, her godfather the composer Horia Moculescu, Rucsandra Popescu approached the world of sounds at the early age of 6, and started studying piano.

She graduated from the Dinu Lipatti Music High School – Bucharest and was ranked among the first three best students in her school year. In 2004 she graduated from the Music University in Bucharest with three degrees: in Composition, Music pedagogy and Academic Choir Conductor. During her study she had a special scholarship for best academic results. She studied composition with Octavian Nemescu, Dan Dediu, piano with Oana Velcovici and choir conducting with Valentin Gruescu. In 2004 she was awarded the prize for the best academic results by the Bucovinieni Sarghie Brothers' Foundation and the University of Bucharest.
In 2002, she received a scholarship from the European Erasmus-Socrates student exchange program with Professor Violeta Dinescu, at the "Carl von Ossietzky" University in Oldenburg

In 2009 she graduated from the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen with Master degree in Composition, Prof. Younghi Pagh-Paan. In the same year she was awarded the prize for the best academic results by the Internal Composition´s Competition of Music Academy Bremen.

In February 2012 she graduated with 'Konzertexamen'(post-university degree), the highest degree in composition, as one of the last students of Prof. Younghi Pagh-Paan at the same Academy of Music in Bremen. In October 2012 she was awarded the Landesmusikrat Composition Prize Bremen.

She was awarded the first prize at the choir composition´s competition "Verleih uns Frieden", in memory of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 (Deutscher Chorverband e.V., promoted by the the Federal Government for Culture)

Between 2005 - 2009 she was a member of the GEDOK Artists’ Association (Künstlerinnenverband) in Bremen.
Between 2015-2018 she was the conductor of the Jazzchoir of the University of Music and Theater Leipzig
Between August 2018 - January 2020 she was music teacher and choir conductor at the St.Johannis School in Bremen.
Since 2006 she is a member of the Romanian Association of Composers and Musicologists.
Between 2008 - 2023 she created and was the conductor and musical teacher of the J-Cappella Choir of the former Jacobs University Bremen.
Currently she is teaching choir conducting and is the conductor of the main Choir and also Popchoir of the University of Music Bremen. She also ist the conductor of ensemble d´accord in Bremen.


Bremens Wissenschaft ist exzellent! Wissenschaft persönlich - Rucsandra Popescu
www.bremen.de/wissenschaft-persoenlich-rucsandra-popescu



Harmonious variety: how director Rucsandra Popescu formed the J-Cappella choir
www.jacobs-university.de/news/harmonious-variety-how-director-rucsandra-popescu-formed-j-cappella-choir