Tomas Nuñez-Garcés

Tomas Nuñez-Garcés is one of Finland's leading orchestral musicians, having held principal cellist posts with several of the country's top orchestras. He has been heard on recordings on the Alba and Ondine labels. Nuñez-Garcés was born in 1984 and grew up in Sund in the Swedish-speaking islands of Finland. His name sometimes appears as Tomas Nuñez, and he does not use accent marks on the "a" in "Tomas" or the "u" in "Nuñez." Nuñez-Garcés took up the cello at age six, studying at the Ålands Music Institute in his home region (in 2008, he joined its faculty). Nuñez-Garcés went on to Finland's Turku Music Conservatory and then to the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Among his teachers were Jakob Lind, Timo Hanhinen, Hannu Kiiski, and Marko Ylönen. He rounded out his education with master classes both in Finland and abroad. Nuñez-Garcés had an especially strong showing at the XI National Turku Cello Competition in 2010, taking the overall first prizes as well as the audience prize and prize for the best performance of the competition's commissioned work. That year, Nuñez-Garcés was named second cellist of the Finnish National Opera Orchestra, and in 2011, he ascended to the first chair. From 2015 to 2018, Nuñez-Garcés served as principal cellist of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2017, he has held the same position with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Nuñez-Garcés also maintains a career as a solo player; he plays recitals regularly and has performed with ensembles, including the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared not only in Scandinavia but also in east Asia, Germany, the U.S., and Greenland, among other countries. In 2018, Nuñez-Garcés was heard on the Alba album Walter Wolf: Music for Piano, Cello and Violin. He returned in 2022 as a soloist with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra on Thomas Adès: Märchentänze.
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