Joaquín Riquelme García decided to take up the violin at the age of eight, but as there were no places available at the music school in his home town of Murcia, he opted for the viola.
It was not long afterwards, at the age of twelve, that he decided to become an orchestral musician.
After completing his training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid with Emilio Mateu and Alan Kovacs, he moved to Berlin to study with Hartmut Rohde at the Universität der Künste Berlin. At the same time, he attended master classes given by Jesse Levine and Jean Sulem.
Joaquín Riquelme García first took up a position as violist with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, before moving directly to the Berliner Philharmoniker, where he has been a member since 2010.
Invited by various orchestras as a soloist, he regularly gives numerous chamber music concerts with his colleagues in the orchestra, as well as with Christian Zacharias, Natalie Chee and Mikhail Kopelman.