Roberto González-Monjas

Roberto González-Monjas

Conductor, Violin

Principal Conductor – Musikkollegium Winterthur
Honorary Conductor – Dalasinfoniettan
Principal Guest Conductor – Belgian National Orchestra
Music Director – Iberacademy Orchestra
Chief Conductor (from 2024/25) – Mozarteumorchester Salzburg
Music Director – Galicia Symphony Orchestra

Biography

Highly sought-after as a conductor and violinist, Roberto González-Monjas is rapidly making a mark on the international scene. A natural musical leader with strong vision and clarity, he possesses a unique mixture of remarkable personal charisma, an abundance of energy, enthusiasm and fierce intelligence. He is Chief Conductor of the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland (since August 2021), Music Director of the Galicia Symphony Orchestra in Spain (since August 2023), and designate Chief Conductor of the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, (beginning September 2024). In addition, Roberto is Principal Guest Conductor of the Belgian National Orchestra (since September 2022) and Artistic Director of Iberacademy in Colombia. The Dalasinfoniettan in Sweden named him Honorary Conductor following a four-year tenure as their Chief Conductor.

Highlights of the 23/24 season include Puccini’s La Bohème at the Opéra de Bordeaux, Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion with the Musikkollegium Winterthur, Respighi’s Roman Trilogy at the Barbican Hall, the world première of Diana Syrse’s “Quetzalcoátl”, a South Korean tour with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, appearances at the Mozartwoche and the Salzburg Festival with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, as well as debuts with the Orchestre National Capitole Toulouse, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Read more

Recent guest conducting and play-directing debuts included collaborations with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, Lahti Symphony and Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra. In the upcoming seasons, he will make his debut with ensembles such as the Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Baltimore Symphony and Spanish National Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

Roberto began his career as a solo violinist, orchestral leader and chamber musician, appearing as such in the Salzburg, Grafenegg, Lucerne, Verbier and Lockenhaus Festivals. He frequently collaborates with singers and instrumentalists including Joyce DiDonato, Ian Bostridge, Yuja Wang, Hilary Hahn, Andreas Ottensamer, Lisa Batiashvili, Fazil Say, Reinhard Goebel, Thomas Quasthoff, András Schiff, Jan Lisiecki, Yeol Eum Son and Kit Armstrong.

Passionate and dedicated to education and nurturing new generations of talented musicians, Roberto co-founded Iberacademy (Ibero-American Orchestral Academy) together with conductor Alejandro Posada. This institution aims at creating an efficient and sustainable model of musical education in Latin America, focusing on vulnerable segments of the population and supporting highly talented young musicians. While based in Medellín (Colombia), it also operates in Bolivia, Perú, Chile and Cuba, providing its students with life-changing opportunities. In the same line of work, Roberto embarked on a European tour with the Sinfonía por el Perú orchestra and star tenor Juan Diego Flórez, with concerts at the Salzburg, Lucerne and Gstaad summer Festivals. Roberto also serves as a violin professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and regularly mentors and conducts the Guildhall School Chamber and Symphony Orchestras at the Barbican Hall in London.

“Mozart Serenades”, Roberto’s newest CD recording with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg for Berlin Classicas, has garnered international praise since its release in Summer 2023. His recordings with the Musikkollegium Winterthur display Roberto’s variety of styles and interests, featuring works by Mozart, Beethoven, Schoeck, Prokofiev, CPE Bach, Tarrodi and Saint-Saens. A frequent collaborator of Berlin Baroque Soloists, Roberto contributed as a soloist to their Sony Classical release of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti conducted by Reinhard Goebel.

Roberto served as concertmaster of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for six years and as the leader of the Musikkollegium Winterthur until summer 2021. He plays a 1710 Giuseppe Guarnieri ‘filius Andreae’ violin kindly loaned to him by five Winterthur families and the Rychenberg Stiftung.

Roberto González-Monjas Conducts at the Salzburg Festival

Jul 26, 2023

Roberto González-Monjas conducts the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg at the Salzburg Festival 27 July. This marks the first collaboration between the conductor and Orchestra since his announcement as its next Chief Conductor, beginning in the 2024/25 season. The...

Roberto González-Monjas Makes his Debut with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris

Jun 29, 2023

This weekend, Roberto González-Monjas makes his debut with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris in two concerts on the 1st and 2nd July. Roberto will conduct the orchestra in an exhilarating programme of Mozart, featuring Sonata da Chiesa K. 278 and K.279, Chaconne and Pas...

Roberto González Monjas Named Next Chief Conductor of the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg

Mar 22, 2023

Roberto González-Monjas is named the next Chief Conductor of the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg. His tenure begins in the 2024/25 season. A frequent collaborator of the Mozarteumorchester since 2019, the Spanish 35-year-old has worked with the orchestra not only as a...

Reviews

“Roberto González-Monjas did it, because he is in a great moment of artistic maturity that allows him to mold a brutal “physical” part (third movement, for example) that also requires absolute devotion to transmit that urban and street paroxysm. The high technical qualities of González-Monjas and especially his compromised attitude are fundamental in this concert, also regarding the delicacy of the Adieu, the care at the time of sewing harmonics and understanding with an orchestral part that has much to express.”

Samuel González Casado

Mundo Clasico

“In all it’s 64 minutes’ worth of music, saved from outstaying its welcome by Mozart’s ever-questing ear for an effect, among the most piquant perhaps being the pizzicato passage towards the end of the Andante. It’s played admirably here, under the direction of the well-travelled Roberto González-Monjas”

David Threasher

Gramophone

More Reviews

“Roberto González-Monjas and the Mozarteum Orchester were audibly one heart and soul … brilliantly disposed … everyone was really enthusiastic …” – Dreh Punkt Kultur, Horst Reischenböck, December 2021

“Roberto González-Monjas is a conductor who knows how to shape a phrase and take care of the details as well as to ensure true symphonic coherence at the head of an orchestra which he has visibly conquered and which he leads with authority and intelligence, ensuring perfect speech clarity at all times … a more than promising young conductor.” Patrice Lieberman, Crescendo Magazine, November 2022

“He is the comet at the Winterthur classical sky: Roberto Gonzalez-Monjas…The famous Haffner Serenade KV 250 by Mozart and the Serenade op. 1 by Othmar Schoeck are included, with Gonzalez-Monjas acting as both conductor and solo violinist. It is amazing how easy and accident-proof the orchestra is now able to play… Mozart has composed movements two to four as a veritable violin concerto full of songfulness and virtuosity, a feast for the violinist Gonzalez-Monjas. With his filigree style and his wonderfully singing violin sound, he dominates the Serenade over long distances…” – Schewizer Musikzeitung, Verena Naegele, July 2018 (CD review)

“Under the baton of the first concertmaster Roberto González-Monjas, the orchestra played with a sonorous tone, and the Ensemble Corund sang with naturally simple vocals. In addition, Gonzalez Monjas built the special Requiem form very organic. The dramaturgy was poignant, the short, violent crescendos unfolding with powerful force.” – Der Landbote, Sibylle Ehrismann, March 2018

“González-Monjas was above all a versatile interpreter, capable of making the most of the tensions that occur in the work [Salonen Violin Concerto ] and recreate in moments of calm. …The soloist left an unbeatable tympanic atmosphere in Pulse I, while in Pulse II it seemed to take the spectator…to an atmosphere of great energy. When he arrived at Adieu, González-Monjas, achieved a melancholy air, without missing the powerful contrasts well provided by the orchestra, and let the sound fade from the acute. The violinist was inexhaustible, in a work that gives no respite, when it comes to delving into the resources that he provided to make them patent. “ – Agustín Achúcarro, Codalario.com, 19 February 2018

“At times when the orchestra launches in full sail, knows how to dose more collected, such as the evocation of the hero’s companion, whose typically feminine intemperance, the fickleness (so feared by men in a woman), are represented by a violin solo with a virtuosistically voluble character, beautifully interpreted by Roberto González-Monjas.” – Stefano Ceccarelli, L’Ape musicale, 25 January 2018

“With verve, verve and enthusiasm as well as excellent technical skills, the instrumentalists present a stringent, sophisticated interpretation of the two works…Roberto Gonzales-Monjas…serves his soli with technically playful lightness and classical interpretation.” – Pizzicato, October 2017