The prestigious magazine The Strad classed her as “an artist who takes risks” and Pizzicato Magazine described her as “a sensitive artist who knows how to immerse in the depths of music”, Villanueva passionately defends music promoting her instrument with her own voice along with her charismatic performances, with great expressiveness and beautiful sound that immediately connect with the audience.
Isabel Villanueva has had an intense career that has led her to play with important orchestras in Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, China and Europe. In 2013 she became the first foreign violist to perform recitals in Iran. Intense, full of vitality and imagination, she has engaged in endless activity as a soloist, pedagogue, researcher, premièring contemporary works, producing chamber music projects with prestigious colleagues and, launching her own festival Pamplona Reclassics.
The important awards that she has received endorse her dazzling trajectory and her brimming energy and talent, the 2015 “El Ojo Crítico” RNE Classical Music Prize and the 2019 Culture Award for Classical Music awarded by the Community of Madrid, among others, Villanueva is one of the most esteemed and complete violists at present.
As a soloist, she has performed with prestigious orchestras such as Moscow Soloists, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica RTVE, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, State National Symphony Orchestra “Novaya Rossiya”, Zagreb Soloists, the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, among others, under the baton of Michel Plasson, Jacek Kaspszyk, Yaron Traub, Paul Daniel, Andres Mustonen, Christian Vásquez and Lior Shambadal. She has also appeared in important halls and festivals including the Grand Hall of Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, the Xinghai Concert Hall in Guangzhou, the Bath Music Festival, the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, the Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid, the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Palau de Valencia, the Lavaux Classique Festival, the Royal Court Theatre of Copenhagen, the Sociedad Filarmónica de Lima, the Auditorio León de Greiff (Bogotá), the Estonian Concert Hall, the Assembly Hall of Beirut, the Rottweil Musikfestival, the Wigmore Hall in London and the Roudaki Hall in Teheran.
Her first album Bohèmes received very good reviews from national and international media (Pizzicato Magazine, The Strad, “Scherzo Excepcional”, “Melómano de Oro”, “Top 10” of the Ritmo magazine). She established herself by receiving the award for “Best Classical Album of the Year” at the 2018 Spanish Independent Music Awards (MIN Awards), it was the first time that a viola album had received this award.
Isabel Villanueva plays with an Enrico Catenar viola (Turin 1670).