Paul Ghica - Cello

Romanian-born cellist Paul Ghica began studying cello with his father at the age of eight. He spent his formative years studying with Corneliu Rădulescu, before being awarded scholarships to study at Indiana and Roosevelt Universities. Other teachers and mentors include János Starker, Richard Hirschl, Katinka Kleijn, Barbara Haffner, and Gary Stucka.

With over two decades of his own teaching experience, Ghica was invited to join the faculty at Chicago’s Merit School of Music in 2008 and Logos School of Music in 2011. Since 2016, he has maintained a private studio in Sydney, with multiple students going on to be accepted into the Sydney Conservatorium’s Rising Stars program and becoming competition prizewinners. In 2019, Ghica was invited to join the teaching staff at Rising Stars.

An active performer in Sydney and abroad, Ghica has served as principal cello of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has collaborated on Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project as part of the Civic Orchestra’s MusiCorps fellowship. He has served as Guest Principal Cello of the Opera Australia Orchestra and Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Guest Associate Principal of Orchestra Victoria, and also performs regularly with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. As a chamber musician, Ghica has appeared in concert with Emanuel Ax, and his chamber music performances have been broadcast regularly throughout Chicago on WFMT and across Australia on ABC Classic FM and 3MBS.

Ghica is also part of a small but growing number of classically-trained multi-genre musicians. Equally at home in Sydney’s Opera House, Chicago’s House of Blues, or Off-Broadway in New York, Ghica enjoys stretching the cello’s boundaries. “Paul Ghica gets sounds you've never heard before out of his cello,” writes Berkshire Fine Arts. Chicago Stage Review adds that he does so “with evocative intuition.” Non-classical credits include Alinta Chidzey & the Jazz Emperors, X Factor (Australia), Australia’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars (Australia), and Vision Australia’s Carols by Candlelight.
Ghica proudly plays a cello commissioned in 2012 from the workshop of the late Wayne Burak. He lives with his partner, violinist Katherine Lukey, in Sydney. When he is not performing or teaching, Ghica can be found training for or participating in cycling gran fondos.