Dragoș Andrei Cantea is an artistic result of the Iași school of music, with Ioana Stănescu as a mentor between 1999 – 2017. This professional partnership concluded in the main formation of the artistic personality of today’s young pianist.

Dragoș is a collaborator of some of the top philharmonics in Romania, performing in the United States, the UK, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Romania. He collaborated with conductors such as Radu Popa, Ovidiu Balan, Ștefan Novak, Theo Wolters, Fergus MacAlpine, Pawel Kapuła or Cristian Mandeal.

He is a triple graduate of the “George Enescu” National University of Arts (UNAGE) in Iași, at the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral levels, under the tutelage of Ioana Stănescu and Dan Prelicpean. He is also an alumni soloist of the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, at the classes of Håvard Gimse and Kathryn Stott, graduating with the project “Nationalism in music – an artistic-diplomatic tool for understanding of common values”.

Since 2017, he has become the main independent cultural link between Romania and Norway, being responsible both for the celebration of 100 years of diplomacy between the two states, and for the events dedicated to Romania’s Centenary in Scandinavia in 2018. Also in 2018, he took over the artistic direction of the European Creative Futures programme.

In 2017, he founded DAC Music Performance, an organization which manages the cultural programmes of Norwegian private and state companies, such as Telenor, Nordea, Eurodent, or DNB Sparebankstiftelsen. Since 2019, he has been an invited lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Vaasa, Finland, working interdisciplinary teaching piano, chamber music and creative entrepreneurship. He was also invited as a member of the jury of the Quatre Music Youth Piano Competition in Singapore in 2021, where he held masterclasses for the finalists of the competition.

Dragoș is also a beneficiary of several scholarships such as Roche Continents 2018, Act in Art 2019, or the Rising Leaders programme of the United States Embassy in Norway.

Currently, Dragoș carries out a strong artistic activity as a soloist and chamber musician in America, Europe and Asia. At the same time, he is coordinator of international projects under the auspices of the Norwegian Arts Council, co-Founder and artistic director of Classix Festival and honorary counselor of the Romanian Ministry of Culture.