Born in Madrid, José-Luis Garcia started violin studies with his father at the age of six. After winning First Prize in the 1960 Sarasate Violin Competition he moved to London to study with Antonio Brosa at the Royal College of Music and one year later won the Stoutzker Prize, the College’s senior violin award. In 1966, at the age of 22, he was appointed professor of violin at the Royal College, and in 1967 was honoured with the Harriet Cohen International Award. For some twenty years he was leader/director of the English Chamber Orchestra, with which he made many recordings.

Over the last thirty years he has appeared as soloist with many of the major orchestras in Europe with distinguished conductors such as Sergiu Celibidache, with whom he studied, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Leonard Slatkin, García-Asensio and others, from the mid-1980s extending his activities as a conductor and soloist to the United States and Canada. In 1992 he joined the faculty of the Queen Sofia School of Music in Madrid, serving also until 1999 as Music Director and Conductor of the orchestra. In December 2007 he was awarded the Order Of Alfonso X ‘The Wise’ by King Juan Carlos for services to music in Spain.

Discography