About
Martin Sieghart is one of the most versatile Austrian artists. In demand worldwide as a conductor, as an educator, teacher and mentor to many internationally successful students, as founder and director of several festivals, as solo cellist for many years at the Vienna Symphony, as organist, répétiteur and presenter of his own opera and orchestral performances, which he performed from the piano designed.
The orchestras that Sieghart conducted include: Philharmonia Orchestra London, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Het Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Stuttgart, Cologne and Hanover, Het Residentieorkest The Hague.
In Austria the Wiener Symphoniker, the Radio Symphonieorchester, the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, the Tonkünstler Orchester Niederösterreich, the Wiener Kammerorchester and the Wiener Concertverein.
In addition, Sieghart has conducted the symphony orchestras of Malaysia, Macao, Sao Paulo, Santiago de Chile, Tokyo Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Japan Century Orchestra, Orchester Filarmonica di Gran Canaria, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, the Philharmonic orchestras of Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade, etc.
Sieghart studied conducting, violoncello, piano and organ in Vienna, and gained valuable musical experience as the solo cellist of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which he later found very helpful. During this time he was also intensely preoccupied with church music. He was Regens Chori at the famous University Church in Vienna. As a chamber musician he played with the "Wiener Kammermusikern", "Wiener Instrumentalsolisten", "Eurasia-Quartett" and the "Concentus Musicus" with Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
In 1985 he switched from cellist to assistant to chief conductor G. Rozdetvensky. After stepping in with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, this oldest chamber orchestra in Germany appointed him chief conductor and thus successor to the legendary Karl Münchinger. In 1992 he also took over the position of chief conductor of the Linz Bruckner Orchestra and the Linz Opera. He recorded numerous CDs with both orchestras.
Sieghart has a special love for the music of the Strauss family. For four years he directed the Johann Strauss Orchestra on its New Year's tour in Japan; With the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London and his orchestra in Arnhem, he dedicated concert programs to these composers. He directed a premiere of "Fledermaus" at the Leipzig Opera.
After the end of his activities in Stuttgart and Linz, he expanded his artistic work and took over the professorship at the Art University in Graz. In 2003 he became chief conductor of the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra and founded his own open-air festival "Mozart in Reinsberg", which was dedicated to Mozart's operas.
A special task was the head position of the chamber orchestra "Spirit of Europe", an international ensemble that recruited its members from over 10 nations. In 2012, together with Susanne Thomasberger and Philipp Harnoncourt, he founded the "EntarteOpera" festival, which set itself the task of bringing back to mind the works of those composers who were defamed as degenerate in the Third Reich. The Israel Chamber Orchestra, whose first guest conductor was Sieghart during these years, was invited as an orchestra.
The 2015/2016 season is also his last at the university. From autumn 2016 Sieghart will devote himself entirely to conducting again. Numerous concerts a.o. in Germany, Japan, South America and Italy are fixed and his first book is in the making. This sees itself as a kind of "Quodlibet" for young conductors. Based on Paul Watzlawick, it will be entitled "Instructions for the Unhappiness of a Conductor" and deal with the universal problems of conducting and how best to master them in a humorous way.