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Violinist Anca Nicolau was born in Bucharest, Romania, where she began studying the violin at the age of four. She won her first competition at the age of nine, and at ten she was accepted as a student of George Manoliu, a former pupil of George Enescu. While still in Romania, Ms. Nicolau performed in master classes held by David Oistrach and Yehudi Menuhin, and at the age of fifteen, she was the winner of the Romanian National Youth Competition, and soloist with the Romanian Radio Orchestra, as well as a finalist in the George Enescu Competition. One year later, Ms. Nicolau received a scholarship to study with Ivan Galamian in New York, who was her teacher at the Juilliard School for three years. She later also studied with Raphael Bronstein and Ruggiero Ricci, and she holds a BM degree from the Manhattan School of Music, a Teacher Training Certificate from Louise Behrendt’s School for Strings, as well as a Masters in Philosophy from Columbia University. Ms. Nicolau was a member of the fellowship program and prize winner at the Tanglewood Music Festival, has toured and performed at festivals such as Caramoor, Spoleto, Drottningholm, Stockholm, Edinburgh, Sidney, Perth, Krakow, Warsaw, London’s Wigmore Hall and Royal Albert Hall, and Salzburg’s Mozarteum, as well as at the Brixen Academy for Early Music and, as a member of the Loma Mar Quartet, she performed at the Library of Congress, for Sir Paul McCartney’s “2010 Gershwin Prize for Song Writing” ceremony.

Performing on both modern and period instruments, Ms. Nicolau is presently a member of the Mozartean Players, the Loma Mar Quartet, the Amati Piano Trio, the Dragonetti’s New Academy, the Drottningholm Theater Ensemble, the Long Island Baroque Ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the American Classical Orchestra. Ms. Nicolau has recorded for EMI, Nonesuch, Decca, Musical Heritage, Foundation Records and Sony Classical labels, and she is presently on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music's Preparatory Division, the Hoff-Barthelson Music School, as well as the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival and School, in Germany. In 2010, Ms. Nicolau was the recipient of the Belz-Parker Award For Excellence in Musical Artistry, and in 2011, she was presented with the Certificate of Excellence by the Forte International Competitions and Festivals.