Cristina Montes Mateo

In the words of Maestro Zubin Mehta: ".. Cristina is one among those very few individuals who have reached the very top of her field, the harp.”

Originally from Spain, Cristina Montes Mateo is the unanimous 1st Prize winner at the “Torneo Internazionale di Musica” (Rome) and the International Harp Competition “V. Bucchi”, in addition to four more international contests (Paris -Laskine and Sacem-, Madrid and Tokyo), as well as numerous national awards.

She was selected by Lorin Maazel as Principal Harp of the Valencia Opera House Orchestra (Spain), where she spent more than a decade. In 2024, she won the position of Principal Harp of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and in 2026, the Principal Harp position of Pacific Symphony. She is also a regular Principal guest with orchestras like the Munich Philharmonic, Staatsoper Berlin, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic or the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

She usually appears as a soloist with major orchestras and has performed at many world leading festivals, highlighting the concert for the King and Queen of Spain and the President of the U.N. at the Royal Palace in Madrid, being broadcasted live internationally. Cristina is the Resident Harpist of the chamber ensemble Salastina. She is also the Adjunct Harp professor at Pepperdine University, and gives regular Master classes internationally like at Berklee College of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire, and Musikhochschule in Cologne.

She has recorded for Decca, Unitel Classica and Sony, and plays actively in the studios in Los Angeles where she has performed on dozens of television shows and movie soundtracks, such as the last recent hits Avatar 2, Hocus Pocus 2, American Dad, or Ghostbusters.