Martin Sieghart
Sundry
Full Biography
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.

Siegart has conducted numerous orchestras, including:
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 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, Philharmonic Orchestras from Ljubljana, Zagreb, Beograd etc.

In Austria: Wiener Symphoniker, Radio Symphonieorchester Wien
Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Tonkünstlerorchester Niederösterreich,  Wiener Kammerorchester, Wiener Concertverein.

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 "Eurasia-Quartett" 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 CD's 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 Der 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 principle guest conductor of during those years.
"The music, successfully arranged by Werner Steinmetz for chamber orchestra, was performed by the Israel Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Martin Sieghart and its interpretation rich in 'Valeurs'"
KURIER
 
The Season 2015/16 is the last at the University.
From Autumn 2016 onwards Sieghart will return once more entirely to conducting. Numerous concerts in Germany, Japan, South America, Italy and Spain etc. have been confirmed.
Also, his first book is in development. It should be understood as a kind of 'Quodlibet' for young conductors. Following Paul Watzlawick, it will be titled "Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein eines Dirigenten". It will deal humorously with the universal problems of conducting and how best to master them.
Persönliches:
You can watch a Portrait Documentary about me under 'Dokumentation': 'Ik adem muziek' - "Ich atme Musik". This lovingly crafted film says more about my life than I could with my own words.
Being a teacher means to always put oneself in the soul of the student and to never demand the reverse.
For all intent and purposes, I think it has always been unimportant in what form I may make music. 'May' being a key word. That I may live with music, from waking up to sleep my life revolves around music.
I require from my students that they regularly sing in a choir. The voice is and will always be the most important thing, regardless in which form one practises music. It is essential to learn how to shape phrases through the natural breath.
If I could only restrict myself just a little! That Bruckner and Mahler have become so important in my career has to do with my family: They were the Gods in my parent's house, along with Wagner and Strauss. 
How wonderful it is to experience young people, who through their love of music see no bounds and ignore the given tempi and dynamics. I do not want to listen to someone at fifty who did not exaggerate at twenty-five. 
It is the most difficult thing to teach the incredibly gifted. Either they do not want to see any limits or they only see these limits and fail in trying to realise their own demands.  To the same degree the interest for our music in Europe decreases and thus the reduction of subsidies (or vice versa? did the chicken come before the egg?), other countries in Asia, the middle east and particularly South America are growing with a remarkable enthusiasm for it. I do not see this as tragic, I follow it with interest and wonder sometimes how we Europeans will manage without our music.
Never try to develop a school of conducting. It does not exist.  It is always exciting to watch a colleague within his open-air festival attempting to hold together the singers, choir and orchestra from a remote area far away from the stage through huge monitors. And mostly with success. These days one calls this music-making.
And year over year it spreads. Soon the organisers will simply prepare a recording and then play it back on tape while the extras act on stage. This is cheaper. Then we would play along as if we were musical lemmings. 
Being a teacher does not mean losing valuable time for conducting and to damage one's own career. It means to learn something new in every lesson, that which one was not conscious of before.

2016/2017
If you wish to revise this biography please contact Mark Stephan Buhl Artists Management (office@msbuhl.com). Please use material of the current season only.