Antonio Meneses was born in 1957 in Recife, Brazil, in a family of musicians. His father was first horn player at the Opera of Rio de Janeiro. He began to study the cello when he was ten.
During a tour in South America, the famous cellist Antonio Janigro met him and asked him to join his classes in Düsseldorf and then in Stuttgart.

In 1977, he won the first Prize at the International Competition in Munich and in 1982 he was awarded first Prize and gold Medal at the Tchaikowsky Competition in Moscow.

Antonio Meneses has made two records for D.G.G. with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra : Brahms' Double Concerto for violin and cello with Anne Sophie Mutter and Richard Strauss' "Don Quixote".

He regularly performs with most of the world's leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Ricardo Muti, Mariss Jansons), London Symphony Orchestra (Claudio Abbado, Andre Previn), Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Semyon Bychkov, Herbert Blomstedt), New York Philharmonic Orchestra (Kurt Sanderling), Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Neeme Järvi), Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, etc.

He is also the guest at many important music festivals, including Puerto Rico (Festival Casals), Salzbourg, Lucerne, the Vienna Festwochen.

Antonio Meneses is teaching at the Conservatoire in Basel.

Repertoire
C. P. E. BACH - Concerto in A Major
BEETHOVEN - Concerto for violin, cello and piano in C major, op. 56
BOCCHERINI - Concerto no 9 in B flat major, G 482
BOCCHERINI - Concerto in D major
BRAHMS - Concerto for violin and cello in A minor, op. 102
E. D'ALBERT - Concerto in C major, op. 20
DVORAK - Concerto in B minor, op. 104
DUTILLEUX - Concerto "Tout un monde lointain..."
HAYDN - Concerto no 1 in C major, Hob VII b1
HAYDN - Concerto no 2 in D major, op. 101, Hob VII b2
HINDEMITH - Trauer Musik (Music of Mourning) for cello and string orchestra
KABALEWSKI - Concerto no 1 in G minor, op. 49
LALO - Concerto in D minor
LUTOSLAWSKI - Concerto for cello
MARTINU - Concerto no 1
PENDERECKI - Concerto no 2
PROKOFIEV - Sinfonia Concertante in E minor, op. 125
PROKOFIEV - Concertino in G minor, op. 132
SAINT-SAENS - Concerto no 1 in A minor, op. 33
SCHOSTAKOWITCH - Concerto no 1 in E flat major, op. 107
SCHOSTAKOWITCH - Concerto no 2 op. 126
STRAUSS - Don Quixote, Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character, op. 35
SCHUMANN - Concerto in A minor, op. 129
TSCHAIKOWSKY - Variations on a Rococo theme op. 33