Your following week will be busy. The first event takes place on Tuesday, March 10^th, 2015 - the release of the album done in collaboration with another Romanian performer - cellist Laura Buruiană. How did this collaboration begin and how did this CD come into being?

This collaboration had a casual start in 2013, after Laura had listened to my debut album at Avie Records - Prokofiev's first 5 sonnets - in a show on Radio France. We knew each other from Romania, but we had never played together. Then she contacted me, insisting on playing Prokofiev's Sonnet for cello and piano. My recording house agreed and we thus recorded together in September, 2013, in Paris, having the same sound crew that we had for the previous two albums: Sébastien Chonion acting as recording producer.

We're talking about works by Enescu, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Why did you choose the music of these composers?

Out of the three albums I recorded at Avie Records, two of them include works by Prokofiev, one even fully so, the first 5 sonnets for piano, to be precise. Therefore, Prokofiev holds a very important place both in my heart and in my repertoire. The album I recorded with Laura Buruiană revolved around Prokofiev's sonnet, Shostakovich's joining in quite naturally. And then we thought that, being two Romanian artists, it'd be nice to include this sonnet by Enescu. I confess, I hadn't known it, but it was a nice discovery. This composition is as beautiful as it is hard to interpret.

On Wednesday, March 11^th, 2015, you will be ensemble Meininger Hofkapelle's soloist, in a concert conducted by Leo McFall. A couple of words about meeting these musicians…?

I have known Leo McFall for some time, I've often listened to him in opera works performed at Glyndebourne, but this is our first collaboration. I admire him a great deal; he is a young conductor with a rich career, with a promising future, with a special sensitivity, both as a musician and as a man. Regarding the orchestra, Meininger Hofkapelle is one of the oldest orchestras in Germany, in Europe as well. Liszt, Wagner, Hans von Bülow made their mark here; and if I take into account the fact that Brahms's Symphony No. 4 was first played in Meiningen by Meininger Hofkapelle and Brahms often led this orchestra, the more excited I am to meet it, listen to it and play together with them.

The chosen opus is Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3. Why did you choose this work?

There are three possibilities to choose from when you're invited to play with an orchestra. Firstly: the orchestra proposes a certain concerto. Secondly: the conductor wants, without fail, to play a certain concerto with a certain soloist. And the last: the soloist picks a concerto. Conductor Leo McFall wanted us to play the concerto on March 11^th concert together. That after he had listened to my debut album at Avie Records, with the first 5 sonnets for piano by Prokofiev and being aware of my affinity for this composer. I can only be glad that he has chosen this concerto and I really hope that sometime in the future I'll have the opportunity to play this concerto or any other of Prokofiev's concertos in Romania.