24/09/2021
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 principal 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: Philharmonia Orchestra London, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Rotterdams Phiharmonisch Orkest, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow, the radio symphony orchestras of Berlin, Stuttgart, Cologne and Hanover, the Museum Orchestra Frankfurt and the Residentieorkest Den Haag .
In Austria: Vienna Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Tonkünstlerorchester Niederösterreich, Wiener Kammerorchester, Wiener Concertverein.
Further collaborations have led him to symphony orchestras from Malaysia, Macao, Sao Paulo, Santiago di Chile, to the 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 principal 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 “Eurasia-Quartett” and the “Concentus Musicus” with Nikolaus 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.
Sieghart has an exceptional love for the music of the Strauss family. He directed the Johann Strauss Orchestra during its tour of Japan over four years. He has dedicated concert programmes to these composers with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonia and his own orchestra in Arnhem. At the Leipzig Opera house he directed a premiere of “Die Fledermaus”.
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.
There was also the special task of being director of the international chamber orchestra ‘Spirit of Europe’, which recruited members from over ten nations. 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 principal 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. As most artists, his musical life was suddenly disrupted by the COVID pandemic. Thus, he was able to find time to reflect on much, to draw hitherto unknown beauty from life and, now, as of Summer 2021, to carefully transition to his former work. Concerts with the Wiener KammerOrchester in the Konzerthaus Wien, a project with the Noord Nederlands Orkest, a Schoenberg concert, and oratorios by Bach will be his first public appearances. Numerous master classes, in the Czech Republic, Italy, the Slovak Republc, and, this November for the first time in Vienna, will complete his artistic comeback.
