Cristian Budu
Piano
Mentioned by Gramophone as “a stunningly original pianist with musical insight and maturity comparable to colleagues twice his age”, Brazilian pianist Cristian Budu had his playing portrayed by famous critic Alain Lompech as “grand, worthy of Arrau in his fifties, certainly of Nelson Freire (who so much admired his younger compatriot) or of any great conductor of the past such as Furtwängler”, with a pianism through which “music emerges […] in an imperious but invisible manner, as though he improvised” (Bachtrack).
Winner of the Clara Haskil International Competition in 2013, Cristian Budu also won awards in Brazil such as Instrumentalist of the Year (APCA) and Best Concert of the Year (Guia da Folha). On Gramophone, he entered the “Top 10 Recent Beethoven Recordings” and “Top 10 Chopin Recordings” lists which include recordings by Martha Argerich, Arthur Rubinstein, Maria João Pires, Dinu Lipatti, Murray Perahia and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Cristian had performed in duos with Renaud Capuçon and Antonio Meneses, played chamber music with musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and solo recitals at the Verbier Festival and La Roque D’Antheron Piano Festival. He has performed as a soloist with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Orquestre de la Suisse Romande, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and at venues such as Jordan Hall in Boston, Liederhalle Stuttgart, KKL Lucerne, LAC Lugano and Athenaeum Bucharest.
In the USA, Cristian was part of a Brazilian music quartet that won the Honors Competition of New England Conservatory in Boston. There, he also hosted the house concerts that generated the creation of the project Groupmuse, and in Brazil, he also started the project Pianosofia with the intention of cultivating a vibrant environment through informal chamber music events.
