Biography

Arturo Ramón was born in 1981 in The Hague, the son of a Dutch mother and a Spanish father. At the age of eleven he started playing the guitar, and when he was fifteen he was admitted to The Royal  Conservatoire in The Hague to study classical guitar. Before long he came into contact with flamenco and began to explore this style of music. He received his first lessons from Johan Frauenfelder. After two years of studying in The Hague, he decided to focus fully on flamenco guitar and continued his studies under Paco Peña, Ricardo Mendeville and Hans van Gogh at the Rotterdam Conservatoire, from where he graduated in May 2003. During his studies he attended master classes from the guitarists Paco Serrano and Moraíto and the singers David Pino and José Parrondo, among others.

Even while still a student, Arturo began performing, both as solo guitarist and as accompanist to flamenco song and dance with various groups, including Primos del Norte, NL Mundo, Algo Así, Flamenkika and The Hungry Gods. These performances took him to nearly every country in Western Europe, as well as Turkey, Morocco, Ethiopia and Argentina. Since 2003 Arturo has been performing annually in theatre tours with the  group La Primavera led by dancer Mascha Meijman.

Besides performing,  he also specialised in studio recording and has worked on a number of CDs, as guitarist, technician and producer. His debut album as a solo guitarist, Matices, came out in 2005, followed three years later by the CD/DVD Doce Meses with Primos del Norte, featuring percussion by Udo Demandt and song by Erminia Fernández Córdoba.

In 2008 he worked together with flamenco singer Carlos Denia on the programme Reizigers uit Radjastan from The International Dance Theatre, with whom he toured Germany and India. The following year he once again worked with The International Dance Theatre, this time on the theatre tour Stampende Stilte and accompanied by Erminia Fernández Córdoba who had now become his wife.

In 2010 he joined The Hungry Gods and the actors Oscar Siegelaar and René Groothof performing in the children’s music theatre production Frank en Stein led by Marcel Sijm.
    During the Third Dutch Flamenco Biennial 2011 he played works by the composers Florian Magnus Maier and Mauricio Sotelo, together with the Nieuw Ensemble, singer Arcángel and dancer Fuensanta la Moneta. During this same Biennial he also worked on the children’s music theatre production Flamenkita with the theatre group Samba Salad led by Herman Link and Rita Iny.

From 2020 tot 2023 he led, together with Alexander Gavilán, the study flamenco guitar at Codarts Conservatory Rotterdam.