Héctor Alfonso Torres González was born in Puerto Rico where he started his guitar studies at the Preparatory School of the Puerto Rico Music Conservatory. In 2007, he started his Bachelor studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, where he studied until 2012 with the distinguished Puerto Rican guitarist Juan Sorroche. From 2012 to 2014 he worked on his Master's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee under world renowned guitarist René Izquierdo. He currently holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of North Texas where he studied with guitarist Thomas Johnson and served as a Teaching Fellow of classical guitar. While at UNT he also served as a Teaching Assistant for the UNT Baroque Orchestra, working under renowned early music specialist Paul Leenhouts.

He has concertized around Puerto Rico, China, Spain, South America, and the U.S., and has been invited to perform and judge in festivals like the 3rd Latin American Guitar Festival in Chicago, 12th Annual Festival of Contemporary Music in San Francisco, the G.H.M. International Guitar Art Festival in Shenzhen, China, and the Boston Early Music Festival. Apart from being an active performer, he has received top prizes at international guitar competitions, including the 4th Annual Baldwin Wallace International Guitar Festival and Competition, the 2nd Annual Mountain View Guitar Festival, the 16th Annual International Tennessee Guitar Festival, the 2016 Mississippi Guitar Festival, the 2018 New Orleans International Guitar Festival, the 4th Annual Lone Star Guitar Festival and Competition, and the 24th Annual Appalachian Guitar Fest and Solo Guitar Competition.

 

Also an active chamber musician, he frequently tours China with his guitar trio, Trio Resonance, where they have played in cities like Beijing, Jinan, Suzhou, Dalian, among others. He is also a member of the guitar duo, Duo Ruiz-Torres whom, alongside Jone Ruiz, dedicate themselves to play music from Puerto Rico and other parts of Latin America. Apart from playing classical guitar he also is an active early music performer, regularly playing baroque guitar, theorbo, lute, and other period plucked instruments with different chamber groups and orchestras across the U.S, including the Texas Early Music Project, Austin Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of New Spain, La Follia, Ensemble Fantasmi, and others. He has studied basso continuo with harpsichordist Dr. Brad Bennight, and plucked instruments with Arash Noori, and Daniel Swenberg from the Juilliard School. From 2016 to 2021, he worked and studied with the director and early music specialist Paul Leenhouts as a member of the University of North Texas’ Baroque Orchestra, where he was a frequent soloist playing works like Antonio Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto in D major RV 93. Recently, alongside baroque harpist Monika Ruusmaa, he was selected as one of Early Music America’s 2021 Emerging Artists.

 

He has also played in master classes for some of the world's leading guitarists, including Manuel Barrueco, Lorenzo Micheli, Matteo Mela, Pepe Romero, Jorge Caballero, Eliot Fisk, Paul Galbraith, Pablo Sáinz Villegas, Adam Holzman, Isaac Bustos, Martha Masters, Judicaël Perroy, Stanley Yates, Mark Eden, Chris Stell, Thomas Kirchhoff, Dale Kavanagh, Jeffrey McFadden, Jose Antonio Escobar, Francisco Bernier, among many others.­­­