Oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy joined the prestigious Staatskapelle Berlin at the age of 21 and has had a high-flying career as a soloist since then. Her career has been promoted by conductor Daniel Barenboim, with whom she has often performed.

Gómez was born in 1990 in Linares, Spain. She studied at the Conservatory Linares, Jaén, and Seville, and then at the Academia de Estudios Orquestales of the Barenboim-Said Foundation in Seville, and later at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Rostock, Germany, with Gregor Witt. In 2008, she joined the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla and performed oboe solos there. Gómez made an immediate splash in 2012 when she was named solo English hornist with the Staatskapelle Berlin at the age of 21, and she became principal oboist two years later under Barenboim. She has frequently played chamber music with Barenboim, including at the Lucerne Festival, the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Philharmonie in Berlin. Beginning in 2015, she was an adjunct professor at Berlin's University of the Arts. Gómez has continued to receive early-career prizes and honors, including designation as an ECHO Rising Star 2020/21.

That honor came with a host of new European performance opportunities, but by that time, Gómez was almost a veteran already. She has appeared with such major groups as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica do Estado de São Paulo at Sala São Paulo, and Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, with which she played for a time. She has played with the Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival as principal oboist. Her chamber music partners, in addition to Barenboim, include violinist Guy Braunstein, cellists Kian Soltani and Pablo Ferrández, and the Calidore String Quartet. Signed to the Warner Classics label, Gómez made her solo recording debut in 2022 with the album Mozart, Strauss: Oboe Concertos, with Barenboim leading the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. ~ James Manheim, Rovi