Biography —

Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas was born in Munich of Spanish parents, where he first studied piano. At the age of 14, he began playing the cello; he graduated from the Reina Sofia School of Music and participated in master courses with cellists as János Starker and Ralph Kirshbaum. He received decisive impulses from Bernard Greenhouse, cellist of the legendary Beaux-Art-Trio and from Gary Hoffman. In 2002, he was awarded the Maurice Ravel prize of the Ravel Academy in Ciboure as soloist and chamber musician and began his international career.

In 2010, Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas gave his debut with the London Symphony Orchestra at the prestigious concert series Ibermúsica in Madrid. Further engagements followed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Charles Dutoit and the Orquesta Nacional de España under Ton Koopman. He also performed with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski and again with the Orquesta Nacional de España under Krzysztof Penderecki. He is a regular guest of all major Spanish orchestras. Invitations to North and South America led him to orchestras like the Fort Worth Symphony under Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the Sarasota Symphony under Anu Tali and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia. He has collaborated with conductors such as Edward Gardner, Michael Tilson Thomas, Roberto Minczuk, Pablo González and Antoni Ros-Marbà. In 2021/2022, he will return to Germany to give several recitals and solo concerts, such as his debut with the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz under Guillermo García Calvo.

Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas has performed at major venues all over the world, such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, the Ford Theatre in Los Angeles and the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.

He also is a devoted chamber musician and has appeared at festivals like the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Mendelssohn Festival of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Festival Música y Danza Granada, the Ravinia Festival and the Montreal Symphony Summer Festival with partners like Josu de Solaun, Gilles Vonsattel, Christopher Park and Alissa Margulis.

Among his recordings are works by Barber, Rachmaninov and Piazzolla. His recordings of Bach’s six solo suites for cello and Beethoven’s cello sonatas with the pianist Christopher Park (Odradek records, 2020) have been highly acclaimed. In 2019, his recording of all works for cello and orchestra by Dvořák with the Magdeburgische Philharmonie under Kimbo Ishii has been released on the label IBS Classical and also received enthusiastic reviews in Germany and abroad. He has just recorded cello works by Schubert and Schumann with pianist Josu de Solaun.

Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas plays a cello by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1673).