Антон Никулеску

A Pietro Guarneri cello, made in Mantua in 1709, has been Anton Niculescu's instrument through a career that started early. Born in Bucharest into a family of musicians, he played in public at twelve and at fourteen gave the Lalo concerto with the Moldova Philharmonic in Iași. He studied with Radu Aldulescu, Antonio Janigro and Daniil Shafran, and went on to hold the principal cello chair at La Scala, at the Teatro Comunale in Florence and at the Teatro Bellini in Catania; the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, founded in 1666, counts him among its honorary members. His institutional work has been Romanian — general director of the Brașov Philharmonic, artistic director of the Romanian Chamber Orchestra, and co-founder of the Euterpe Foundation, set up to give young Romanian players their start. He has toured Europe, the United States, Japan, Russia, Brazil, China and South Africa, played with the Oistrakh Ensemble and the Zurich String Trio, and partnered Bruno Canino and Pavel Gililov. In 2012 he was heard as soloist with the Brașov Philharmonic, in the orchestra's own city. His election to the Bologna academy came in 1997.