Professor of Cello at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid and, since the 2017–18 academic year, Associate Professor of the Aline Foriel-Destezet Cello Chair at the Reina Sofía School of Music, Fernando Arias combines his vocation as a teacher with an intense concert career, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician.

As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras such as the Spanish National Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia, ADDA Alicante Symphony, Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra, Vallès Symphony Orchestra, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, among others, under the baton of conductors including Lawrence Foster and Álvaro Albiach, in venues such as the National Auditorium and Palau de la Música Catalana. He also regularly gives recitals in Spain’s most important concert halls and abroad, in countries as diverse as Germany, the United States, Russia, Japan, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Serbia, Tunisia, and Mozambique.

Particularly passionate about chamber music, he has shared the stage with artists such as David Kadouch, Antje Weithaas, Anthony Marwood, and the Cosmos and Quiroga Quartets, and more regularly with the VibrArt Trio, of which he is a founding member alongside Miguel Colom and Juan Pérez Floristán.

Among his discography, highlights include his recording of Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto for Sony Classical; the complete Brahms sonatas for cello and piano with pianist Luis del Valle (Columna Música); his album with the VibrArt Trio featuring works by Schubert and Shostakovich (Solè Recordings); and his latest CD, Slavic Soul, with pianist Noelia Rodiles, featuring works by Dohnányi, Janáček, and Shostakovich (Eudora Records).

His recent and past engagements include performances as a soloist of cello concertos by Vivaldi, Haydn, Beethoven and Martinů (Triple Concertos), Saint-Saëns, Schumann, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Ibert, Gulda, and Ligeti.

As an educator, Fernando Arias is frequently invited to give masterclasses in cello and chamber music both in Spain and abroad. From 2012 to 2015 he was part of the faculty of the Yellow Barn Festival (Vermont, USA). He is a regular collaborator of the Reina Sofía School of Music, and in 2019 he was awarded, through a public examination, the Cello Chair at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid.

Fernando Arias began his musical studies with Arantza López and continued with Ángel Luis Quintana, Michal Dmochowski, and Natalia Shakhovskaya at the Reina Sofía School of Music, where he received from Her Majesty Queen Sofía the distinction of “Most Outstanding Student.” He later furthered his training with Eberhard Feltz and in the class of Jens Peter Maintz at the Universität der Künste Berlin.