The cellist Josetxu (yo-SET-shu) Obregón switched from modern to Baroque cello during his studies in the Netherlands and has been a rising figure among the younger generation of historically oriented musicians. Obregón was born in Bilbao, in Spain's Basque country, in 1979. He took up the cello at the age of six and eventually earned 11 international prizes for his playing. Obregón began his career as a player of the modern cello, teaching at Madrid's Royal Conservatory and winning a place in the cello section of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. But while working and taking further lessons in the Netherlands, he began to experiment with the Baroque cello. He enrolled at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, studying with Lucia Swarts, had weekly lessons from Anner Bijlsma, who invited him to appear in a Spanish documentary about Boccherini. Obregón also studied with Bart van Oort, Jaap ter Linden, and others. Soon he was being invited to perform at early music festivals including the Bachwochen Wiesbaden in Germany; the Saison de musique sur instruments anciens in Strasbourg, France; the York Early Music Festival and Music at Oxford in Britain, and the Fringe Festival Oudemuziek in Utrecht in the Netherlands. He has also toured the U.S., Mexico, and Japan. In 2007, still a student in the Netherlands, Obregón founded the early music group La Ritirata, with which he still plays and which has gone on to a successful career. Obregón and La Ritirata were signed almost immediately to the Verso label, where they issued an album of Boccherini sonatas in 2008. Obregón has also recorded on the modern cello, making an album of sonatas by Webern, Cassadó, and Prokofiev for Verso in 2009. He has appeared with La Ritirata on several albums on Spain's Glossa label, beginning with Il Spiritillo Brando, a collection of dance music by Andrea Falconieri, in 2013. In 2018, Obregón and La Ritirata issued an album of Neapolitan concertos for various instruments. Obregón plays a restored Sebastian Klotz cello from the year 1740. ~ James Manheim, Rovi