Cellist Antonio Meneses and pianist Cristian Budu. Album 'After a dream' - CD Review, 15^th of November 2023

César Franck - Sonata in A major; Claude Debussy - Sonata for cello and piano

Debut album, released on the 1^st of September

"In 2023, two renowned exponents of classical music have come together in a unique collaboration. Cellist Antonio Meneses meets pianist Cristian Budu for the first time in a recording, presenting the album "After a dream", announces the Brazilian record label Azul Music, which celebrates 3 decades of its foundation by releasing this CD.

The album features pieces by great French Romantic and Impressionist composers - Cesar Franck, Gabriel Faure, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Camille Saint-Saëns. As part of Radio Romania Muzical's Discurile Discurile anului 2023 project, we are offering selections from this album by the famous Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses, now 66, who won the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and has subsequently recorded numerous albums with musicians such as Anne Sophie Mutter, Herbert von Karajan and Maria Joao Pires.

For his latest album, Antonio Meneses collaborates with Brazilian pianist of Romanian origin Cristian Budu, an acclaimed 35-year-old musician who won the prestigious Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Vevey in 2013.

Cristian Budu was born in Brazil in 1988 to Romanian parents. He is a musician of outstanding achievements who released his debut album in Europe in 2016, with Frederic Chopin's Preludes op. 28, receiving Diapason and Gramophone awards. He also recorded a disc of Beethoven pieces in 2021 and in 2023 he participated in the pressing of an album of concertante works by Haydn and Mozart before releasing his recent disc of opus from the French repertoire with cellist Antonio Meneses.

"An amazing and original pianist with musical perspective and maturity", is how Gramophone describes pianist Cristian Budu, who first came to Romania at the age of 19 for a concert at the Romanian Athenaeum. He has also collaborated over the years with the Stuttgart Broadcasting Orchestra, the Orchestra Suisse Romande, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and most of the major ensembles in Brazil. He performs a varied repertoire including both concertante and chamber music from different stylistic periods.