(about Servants)
“Sound, image, and storyline are carefully crafted and every cinematic element is working at the highest level. The ominous score and highly charged sound design support the images in a unique, modern, and often distorted way, pushing the film beyond excellence”. (Film Fest Gent Jury, October 23, 2020)

(about Coroană de trandafiri)
“Lolea has made an especially haunting version of ‘Coroana de trandafiri’, a carol about Mary sitting at a window waving an object that transpires as barbed wire: the crown of thorns that will be placed on Christ’s head before the crucifixion. The original carol arose in two versions, one for a chorus and one for pan pipes. Here both versions are combined and performed for the first time with a solo soprano, and the effect is touchingly affecting, with the modal pan pipes of long ago ingeniously suggested by a solo violin and Angela Gheorghiu’s evocative emotive inflections painting a spiritual landscape with heartrending pathos.” – (Gramophone Magazine, December 9, 2013)

(about Orizont)
“Cristian Lolea’s score, all spare strings and nerve-jangling percussion, adds to the Hitchockian undertone of escalating unease.” – Stephen Dalton (The Hollywood Reporter, December 4, 2015)

(about Orizont)
“Sound is crucial to the film’s oppressive atmosphere. A Hitchcockian orchestral score adds to the sense of mounting threat” – Wendy Ide (Screen Daily, November 20, 2015)

(about Fairy Tales)
“À la fois vif et austère, cette page interroge plus profondément l’écoute qu’elle ravit dans ses mystères, au fil d’un parcours enrichi par un jeu non maniéré sur les timbres.” – (anaclase.com, September 5, 2015)

(about An Angel Hooked on Me)
”Revelation of the Year – Cristian Lolea. I confess that Gheorghe Preda also contacted me for An Angel Hooked on Me’s music, nevertheless I had to refuse because I was too busy with another project. But the truth is I was scared to tell him that the complexity of what he has asked me for kind of panicked me. Cristi Lolea mustered up his courage and went off with a bang.” – Petru Mărgineanu (Actualitatea Muzicală Magazine, 2008)

(about An Angel Hooked on Me)
“She had a traumatic childhood, is sick with asthma, and even if her music is successful, still she is very lonely in her lovely minimalist and aseptic home. Her life slips into a white world with black accents, where suddenly intense blue spots come out, signs of the passion the stranger chases her with. Although apparently fragile and vulnerable, Ana composes powerful music (the industrial “symphonisms” composed by Cristian Lolea are excellent) and resists assault from the secret admirer.” – Gabriela Hurezean (Q Magazine, November 25, 2007)

(about the orchestrations for Project Bandaloop‘s Sao Paulo show)
“I met a fabulous composer in Bucharest, Romania, while I was studying orchestral conducting, and asked if he would help with the orchestrating, editing and publishing of these works. Cristian Lolea turned out to be a fabulous collaborator and a good friend. His work is stunning and I am indeed thrilled to hear these pieces in their new forms. It was a challenging project, as some of the material was originally improvised music and only existed on CD from a live event.” – Zachary Carrettin (January, 2007)

(about Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 for violin and string orchestra)
“The 1st Romanian Rhapsody was composed for full symphony orchestra without a soloist. Enescu later did a reduction of the score for solo piano. The commission, a joint venture of the NESE and myself, was not an easy task, but it was accomplished brilliantly by the gifted Romanian composer Cristian Lolea.” – Irina Mureşanu (2008)

(about Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 for violin and string orchestra)
“The piece featured rampant, virtuosic, folk-inspired writing for the whole orchestra.” – Peter Van Zandt Lane (The Boston Musical Intelligencer, September 28, 2008)

(about R.E.M.)
”Another student of Olah, and the youngest composer in the program, has established a very good reputation: Cristian Lolea follows in Olah’s steps without ever being able to be accused of epigonism. Melodic figures and harmonies can remind us in R.E.M. (an allusion to a certain phase of sleep) of Olahian sonorities, but the impeccable arching of the musical form denotes power and original musicality. Lolea ’feels’ the form, he conceives it rhetorically in the sense of direct persuasion on the performer and listener.” – Valentina Sandu-Dediu (România Literară, June 25, 2003)

(despre Entropia)
“Entropia (2009), de Cristian Lolea frappe par le caractère abrupt de ses contrastes, sa violence, latente ou déchaînée.” – Didier van Moere (ConcertoNet, 2009)

(about black-and-white)
“Cristian Lolea’s black-and-white (in spite of the title) is an impressive curtain of rhythms and shades, gravitating towards the dark and mysterious” – Grete Tartler (Ziarul Financiar, September 9, 2011)

”As in the 1950’s and ’60’s, where a young generation of composers formed in the spirit of a quasi-clandestine delight of banned european avant-garde music, a new generation today is being born of a similar ilk thanks to the Profil project. Cristian Lolea – disciple of Tiberiu Olah – may well become one of the leaders of these young composers; the combination of talent, a dramatic sense of musical form, and an unquestionable mastery of compositional tools brings him near to the level of his master.” – Valentina Sandu-Dediu (Radio România Muzical, Post-war romanian music, December 20, 2009)

”I have all the confidence in Cristian Lolea’s talent and in the progress he will make in the future” – Tiberiu Olah (Radio România Tineret, Excelsior, 1996)