ABOUT THE ARTIST

Performer, Teacher, Artist, Activist

Arturo Rodriguez is a Chicano flutist, composer, recording artist, and flute teacher based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was born and raised in San Francisco where music and folk art were a part of his upbringing. Mr. Rodriguez always had a keen sense of desire for music. In Elementary School he participated in a strings program as well as learning how to play the congas. In Middle and High School he participated in band and orchestra respectively. 

Arturo would continue to study music while performing with a variety of musical ensembles including the Oakland Youth Orchestra (now Oakland Youth Symphony Orchestra) under the direction of Michael Morgan and Bryan Nies, the Young Person's Symphony Orchestra directed by David Ramadanoff, the Gay and Lesbian Freedom Band of San Francisco, the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, and many other orchestral ensembles throughout the Bay Area and beyond. 

He graduated from the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. Rodriguez has performed in a variety of concert halls such as the Fillmore, Paramount Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House. He has studied with Gail Edwards, Maria Tamburrino, and Mathew Krejci, and has participated in master classes led by Jennifer Olson, Viviana Guzman, Monica Anthony, Ray Furuta, and Valerie Coleman.

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Arturo currently performs as a soloist and section flute player in a variety of ensembles throughout the bay which include community and pit orchestras. He currently serves as an Ambassador for the Awesöme Orchestra Collective where his talents were included in various Undercover Presents events and albums, including Tribute to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Green Day’s Dookie. He has also performed with artists such as The Dear Hunter, Diana Gameros, and Palette Swap Ninja.

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Aside from being an accomplished musician, Arturo is a composer of orchestral and chamber literature. He studied music composition at the City College of San Francisco under the guidance of Rebeca Mauleon. His current composition projects include his much anticipated Requiem Sinfonica; a requiem without words. It's a 9-movement symphonic requiem dedicated to the victims of 2016's Ghost Ship Fire. A full premiere of this work will be on the 6th Anniversary in 2022.

His other works include a work for solo C flute, piccolo and alto flute entitled Metamorphosis Suite, his revised First Symphony entitled "The Great", his second symphony inspired by Sibelius' orchestral tone poem the Oceanides, his Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra, various chamber works for wind quartet and quintet, and works for two flutes including his Sonatina for Two Flutes. He has also premiered an arrangement of Jules Mouquet's second movement of La Flute de Pan for two flutes and harp. In early 2021, he premiered his arrangement of Onikho's Brave One as part of the Music in Place series on YouTube. 

As of the Summer of 2021, Artie Rodriguez will begin a new venture in starting a social equitable music organization called the Iridescent Ensemble Collective. It's a collective of musicians who identify as People of the Global Majority. The ensemble is to highlight the excellence of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander/Polynesian artists' contributions to what we call Classical Music. The ensemble is expected to take off in the Summer of 2023.

Arturo currently serves as faculty with the Young Musicians Choral Orchestra in Berkeley, CA. 

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