Born in Romania, Valentin Gheorghiu started learning the piano at the age of four and was admitted to the Bucharest Royal Academy of Music at the age of seven. From 1937 to 1939, thanks to a recommendation by George Enescu, he continued his piano and harmony studies at the National Conservatory in Paris. His debut with an orchestra came at the age of 15 with the Bucharest Philharmonic. He has since performed throughout Europe and in North America, Israel, and Japan, with prestigious orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Orchestre de Paris, and the orchestras of Chicago, Tokyo, Osaka, Geneva, and Prague, among others, under conductors such as Seiji Osawa, Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, and Rafael Kubelik. Valentin Gheorghiu has served on the juries of more than 60 international competitions. He has received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Music in Bucharest and has been awarded the George Enescu Prize for his compositions and the Romanian Academy Prize for his career as a whole, as well as the Award for Excellence in Romanian Culture.