Pilar Fontalba is Professor of Music and Performing Arts at the Conservatory of Navarra. She is a founding member of OWNSTAGE, a collective dedicated to the creation of stage productions, and president of Colectivo E7.2, an organisation devoted to interdisciplinary experimentation in Navarra. She is an oboist with Vertixe Sonora and Ensemble Ö! (Switzerland), and Principal Oboe of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra. She has premiered more than one hundred works, many of which were written specifically for her.

She obtained her Higher Degree in Oboe with the End-of-Degree Honour Award at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid in 1998. She later studied with Thomas Indermühle at the Musikhochschule Zürich (Switzerland), where she earned a Master of Arts in Music Performance – Konzert (120 ECTS) and a Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance – Soloist (120 ECTS), both with the highest distinction (Auszeichnung). She was also awarded the Concert Diploma with First Prize at the École Nationale de Musique du Pays de Montbéliard (France) under Christian Schmitt, and the advanced diploma from the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Florence, Italy. In 2020 she completed a Master’s Degree in Musical Research (60 ECTS) at UNIR.

Upon the recommendation of Heinz Holliger, she was invited for several seasons to participate in the Lucerne Festival Academy, working with Pierre Boulez, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and composers in residence such as Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm and Isabel Mundry.

During the 2003–2004 season she was a member of the Basel Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed as a soloist with numerous opera and symphony orchestras in Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland and Germany.

In 2004 she was invited by Pierre Boulez to perform Berio’s Chemin IV as a soloist under his direction at the opening of the Agora Festival 2004, organised by IRCAM in Paris, in memory of Luciano Berio.

As a soloist she has appeared at festivals such as Young Artist in Concert (Davos, Switzerland), Festival Martinü (Basel), Audio-Art Festival (Kraków), Instrumento Solo (Buenos Aires), Encuentro de Oboístas (Buenos Aires), Herrenhausen Festival (Hanover), IDRS, Salzburg Biennale, Venice Biennale, Teatros del Canal (Madrid), Lucerne Festival, Davos Festival, Tage für neue Musik (Zurich), Deutsche Radio – Berlin Philharmonic Hall, CDMC – Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), Alicante Contemporary Music Festival, Santiago de Chile Contemporary Music Festival, Santander International Festival, Gare du Nord (Basel), among others.

She is the founder and soloist of Ensemble Laboratorium, was a member of Ensemble Phönix (Basel) for fifteen years, and has performed with Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche (Freiburg), Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Neopercusión (Madrid), Experimentalstudio (Freiburg), Koan 2 (Madrid), Placa Base (Mallorca) and Collective Impulsion (Paris).

From 2004 to 2020 she was Professor of Oboe at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de las Islas Baleares. She was academic director and assistant to Thomas Indermühle at the International Woodwind Music Course in Jávea (Alicante) from 2000 until its final edition in 2023, and she also founded and directed the Oboe Festival of Palma de Mallorca.

She has taught oboe and chamber music courses at the University of La Serena (Chile), served as a teacher at Musikschule Pratteln (Switzerland), and given lectures and masterclasses in Kraków, Warsaw, Chile, Buenos Aires, Seville, Jaén, Málaga, Mahón, among others. She has also been a faculty member of the wind section at the Contemporary Music Meetings of the ACA Foundation in Mallorca, and taught for the Spanish National Youth Orchestra (JONDE) at the Alicante Festival 2011. She has been a guest professor in the Electroacoustic Master’s programme at the Conservatorio A. Boito in Parma and the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan.

Her recordings include Miroirs déformants by Nicolas Vérin for INA-GRM, Renaceres by Víctor Carbajo for oboe and strings, and Concierto del Alba by Manuel Angulo for oboe and orchestra with José Luis Temes and the Córdoba Orchestra for the Verso label. Her most recent recordings have been released by the Cezanne label and feature works written and dedicated to her.

In 2003 she received the Hegar Prize in Zürich for her interpretation of Kinêsis by Gérard Zinsstag. In 2024 she premiered iSlave by Alberto Bernal, Mar Gómez and Pablo Ramos, a project awarded the Leonardo Grant from the BBVA Foundation.