[1] Ioana started studying violin with her father, Adrian Petcu, continuing at the Conservatoire de Nantes where, age 16, she obtained the "Premier Prix á l'Unanimité" .
She has studied with musicians such as Hermann Krebbers, Mauricio Fuks, Lydia Mordkovitch, Erich Gruenberg, Mariana Sîrbu, Gregory Ellis, and Pierre Wallez.
Her performances as soloist include the violin concertos of Antonio Vivaldi, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Max Bruch, Camille Saint-Saëns, Édouard Lalo, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, Dmitri Shostakovitch, Henryk Wieniawski, Jean Sibelius and Pablo de Sarasate, the Concerto for violin, piano and string quartet by Ernest Chausson as well as the concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach performed both on modern and baroque violin, performing under the batons of William Eddins, Niklas Willen, James Lockhart, David Brophy, Neil Thomson, Proinnsias O'Duinn and Robert Houlihan.
She has formed a successful duo with Elizabeth Cooney performing rarely heard violin duo repertoire in dynamic and diverse performances, exploring works ranging from the baroque to the contemporary by Jean Delphin Alard, Darius Milhaud, Henryk Wieniawski, Béla Bartók, Alfred Schnittke, Sergei Prokofiev, George Enescu, Paul Constantinescu and Jackie McLean or works for two violins and piano by Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck, Alfred Schnittke, Bohuslav Martinů, Eugène Ysaÿe, Anton Arensky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Pablo de Sarasate, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Gabriel Fauré and Jean Françaix.
Composer Ronan Guilfoyle wrote a special work for her, "Ferdinand the Bull" for violin and narrator, first performed at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork.