Martin Sieghart
Martin Sieghart is one of the most versatile musicians of his country. He is a conductor of worldwide demand, a teacher of many successful international students, the founder and director of several festivals, a former longstanding principle cellist of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, organist, repetiteur and has acted as a moderator on the piano for his own opera and orchestral projects.
Sieghart has conducted numerous orchestras, including the Philharmonia Orchestra London, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Rotterdams Phiharmonisch Orkest, Tschaikowsky Symphony Orchestra Moskau, Radio Symphonieorchester from Berlin, Stuttgart, Köln, Hannover, Museum Orchestra Frankfurt, Residentieorkest Den Haag, and in Austria the Wiener Symphoniker, Radio Symphonieorchester Wien, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Tonkünstlerorchester Niederösterreich, Wiener Kammerorchester and Wiener Concertverein.
He also was guest conductor of the symphony orchestras from Malaysia, Macao, Sao Paulo, Santiago di Chile, Tokyo Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Japan Century-Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica di Gran Canaria, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliano, Philharmonic Orchestras from Ljubljana, Zagreb, Beograd etc.
In Vienna, Sieghart studied conducting, cello, piano and organ. After his studies he collected valuable experience as principle cellist of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra which later proved extremely useful. During this period he was intensely involved in church music. Furthermore, he has performed as a chamber musician with the “Wiener Instrumentalsolisten”, the “EurasiaQuartett” and the “Concentus Musicus” with Nicolas Harnoncourt.
In 1985 he switched roles from cellist to become assistant conductor of G. Rozhdestvensky. After stepping in as a conductor for the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the oldest chamber orchestra in Germany, they appointed him the successor of their legendary chief conductor Karl Münchinger. In 1992 he was also appointed the chief conductor of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the Linz Opera House. He has recorded numerous CDs with both orchestras.
At the end of his activities in Stuttgart and Linz he expanded his artistic activities and was appointed professor at the University of Music and Peforming Arts, Graz.
In 2003 he became chief conductor of the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra and founded his own Open Air festival, ‘Mozart in Reinsberg’, dedicated to the operas of Mozart. In 2012, Sieghart founded the “EntarteOpera” festival together with Susanne Thomasberger and Philipp Harnoncourt. The purpose of this festival was to restore works which had been vilified during the Third Reich as degenerate. The Israel Chamber Orchestra was invited as the festival orchestra which Sieghart was also the principle guest conductor of during those years. In 2016 Sieghart concluded his teaching activities as a professor in Graz and became active worldwide as a freelance conductor and pedagogue.
