Ronald Martin Alonso

Viola da gamba player Ronald Martin Alonso has worked with a large number of period-instrument ensembles around France and beyond. He is also the founder and leader of his own Ensemble Vedado. Alonso was born in Havana in 1980 and grew up there in what he describes as modest circumstances. He was musical from an early age, and his mother enrolled him at a music school for lessons on the guitar and the double bass. Alonso went on to the Havana Conservatory of Music, graduating with degrees in those two instruments. However, his career took a 90-degree turn at age 20 when he saw the film Tous les matins du monde, about the gamba player and composer Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, at the Havana Film Festival. Completely fascinated, he threw himself into learning the viola da gamba, despite the fact that Cuba at the time had no printed viola da gamba method and just one Baroque music ensemble, Ars Longa. After a period of study, he was admitted to that group by its director, Teresa Paz, and made several recordings with that ensemble. Alonso earned a scholarship from France's Centre International des Chemins du Baroque and moved to that country, receiving degrees in viola da gamba and chamber music from the Strasbourg Regional Conservatory (CRR Strasbourg) and going on for a graduate degree in viola da gamba at the Paris Regional Conservatory; there he studied with Ariane Maurette and graduated in 2010. He attended master classes with various prominent players, including Jordi Savall and Christophe Coin. Alonso made his recording debut on the Musica Ficta label with the group Il Festino on the album Moulinié, Boësset: L'Air italien au temps de Louis XIII. Since then, he has appeared with a large variety of early music ensembles, including Les Paladins, Stravaganza, Elyma, and Capella Mediterranea; he has appeared with these groups at numerous major festivals in Europe and the U.S. and has also maintained ties to Latin America. He continues to appear in Cuba and has participated in teaching exchange programs in Peru, Paraguay. and Chile. In 2014, he founded Ensemble Vedado and recorded an album of works by Marin Marais with that group. Alonso has appeared on various recordings, and in 2023, he was featured on the album Mujeres by soprano Diana Baroni on the Aparté label.
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