Lola Bobesco

Who was Lola Bobesco?

Lola Violeta Ana-Maria Bobesco was a Belgian violinist of Romanian origin.

She was born in Craiova, Romania, and began her career as a child prodigy, giving her first recital there at the age of 6 with her father, composer and conductor Aurel Bobesco. She continued her studies at the Ecole Normale Musique de Paris with Marcel Chailley, and at the Conservatoire de Paris with Jules Bucher, where she gained her first prize in 1934, and graduated with the "Prix d'Excellence." She took private violin lessons with George Enescu and Jacques Thibaud. She became known internationally after appearing in Paris aged 17 with the Colonne Orchestra under the baton of Paul Paray, where she performed a concerto by Romanian composer Stan Golestan. The following year, 1937, she obtained the seventh prize at the Eugène Ysaÿe contest.

Although established abroad even before the end of World War II, she returned to Romania and regularly appeared in concerts with the Radio Philharmonic in Bucharest, and the provinces in Craiova, Brasov, Iasi, Timisoara.

She founded two musical groups in Belgium: in 1958, the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie in Liège; and in 1990, the string quartet L'Arte del Suono in Brussels.