About me

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Hi! I’m Fermín, musician and violist.

Here I describe my professional career, mentioning many of the people I have learnt from, because I believe that naming them is a way of thanking them. Above this paragraph are the links to my Curriculum Summary.

I began my music studies thanks to the support of my family and my first violin teacher, Alicia Swords. I continued my studies in harmony and violin with Rie Watanabe, Alban Usatch, Pedro “Sangeet” Wood and Rafael Nava Curto. I graduated from the ‘University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas’ (UNICACH), where I studied viola with Noelia Gómez González and completed a research project entitled «Relations between the Visual and the Auditory» supervised by ethnomusicologist Félix Rodríguez León.

I attended viola and chamber music masterclasses from Elías Morales Cariño, Rocío Orozco, Ludovica Mosca, Laura Esnaola, Luis Llácer, Brendan Conway, Peter Schmidt, Cyrille Purro, Germán Bringas and Roberto Peña Sommer.

In theoretical subjects and instrumental ensemble courses, I received guidance from Félix Rodríguez, Patricia “Pilla Piano” Reyes, Ciro Liberato, Claudia Herrerías, Salatiel Cruz, Bulmaro Ruiz, Sven Merzbach, and Douglas Bringas. Concurrently, I took the diploma course «Formación de Formadores» (teacher education) with Educreando A.C. (2009) and Pedagogy Workshops (2018 and 2019) with Rie Watanabe.

I played in the UNICACH Symphony Orchestra under conductor Rafael Nava Curto (2007–2009). I collaborated on the artistic projects of saxophonist Pedro Wood (2007–2010), played in the San Cristóbal de Las Casas Youth Symphony Orchestra (2012–2013), and was a member of the UNICACH String Camerata (2010), conducted by Noelia Gómez.

In August 2015, I took part as a guest musician in the staging of «Fragmentos de un día de niebla» (Fragments of a Foggy Day), a work by playwright Alicia Zárate, contributing with original compositions. Subsequently, Alicia invited me to compose the music for the credits of the short film version of «Un día de lluvia» (A Rainy Day), wich premiered in 2019.

I performed as a soloist at the San Cristóbal de Las Casas International Cervantino-Barroco Festival in 2018. In 2020 was released the video «The Viola: From New Spanish Music to the Folklore of Chiapas», funded by a grant from the State Council for Culture and the Arts of Chiapas (CONECULTA). In 2021 I gave a lecture on the same subject at the Francisco I. Madero Theater in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

I worked in the Musical Initiation Course (CIM) in the Faculty of Music at UNICACH from 2015 to 2023, teaching violin, viola, and orchestral ensemble, and serving as academic adviser. I taught violin, viola, and musical initiation, and conducted the Chiapas-Japan Cultural Alliance String Orchestra (an alliance founded and coordinated by Rie Watanabe).

In 2025 I completed the University Master’s Degree in Musicology, Music Education, and Early Music Performance jointly offered by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Autonomous University of Barcelona) and the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (Catalan College of Music), studying viola with Manfredo Kraemer. My master’s dissertation, «Critical Transcription for Viola of Telemann’s Methodical Sonatas: From Baroque Practice to Historically Informed Performance», was supervised by violinist Germán Echeverri Chamorro. In my theoretical subjects and instrumental ensemble, I learnt from Emmanuel Balssa, Lluís Coll, Lorenzo Coppola, Alba Roca, Luca Guglielmi, Mara Galassi, Marta Almajano, Oleguer Aymamí, Pedro Memelsdorff, Xavier Blanch, Javier Artigas, Xavier Puertas, Úrsula San Cristóbal, Ruben López Cano and Lambert Climent.

I have had the opportunity to collaborate with Elena and Miguel Muñoz Ruiz, the Orquesta Café con Pan, Felipe Cruz Contreras, Omar de La Cruz Courtois, Daniela Pinzón, Areli Cruz and the rock band Los Thompsons.

As well as music, I have a strong interest in the visual arts, astronomy and the design of WordPress-based websites.