Aida-Carmen Soanea, an eclectic and charismatic violist, won the 1st prize at the „Valentino Bucchi“ Competition in Rome in 2005. She was already established as an outstanding talent of her generation when she won the 2nd prize at the „Bashmet Viola Competition“ in Moscow (2000).
Student of Kim Kashkashian and Gérard Caussé, she has been influenced and received significant musical input from Ivan Fischer and Claudio Abbado, with whom she regularly collaborated as viola-solo in several orchestras.
An avid chamber musician, Aida-Carmen often performed with musicians like Natalia Gutman, Kolja Blacher, Alfredo Perl, Alexander Melnikov, Jean-Quilhem Queyras or Adrian Brendel.
From 2007 to 2015 Aida-Carmen Soanea was a founding member of the "delian::quartett" with whom she appeared at Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, at Ludwigsburger Festspiele, in the Vienna Musikverein or Berlin Philharmonie. Since 2016, she is a founding member of the „Vesna StringTrio“, with Natalia Prishepenko and Romain Garioud.
Aida-Carmen Soanea' s relation with contemporary music is essential for her. She is regularly invited to join the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt and many works by living composers are dedicated to her. She is preparing her doctoral thesis at the „G. Dima Music Academy“ Cluj on the dodecaphonic composer Herbert von Hannenheim, a student of Schoenberg, whose entire oeuvre for viola and piano she researched and recorded for Challenge Classics as a world premiere.