Martin Haselböck
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Full Biography
The Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck hails from a famous family of musicians.  Early in his career, following studies in Vienna and Paris and receiving numerous prizes and fellowships, he gained an international reputation as an organ soloist, working with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Riccardo Muti and many others. His recordings as an organist have brought numerous awards, including the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, the Diapason d'Or and the Hungarian Liszt Prize. Several composers of our time, including Ernst Krenek, Alfred Schnittke, Cristobal Halffter, Gilbert Amy have written works for Martin Haselböck and dedicated compositions to him. He has released over 50 CDs as a soloist, including the important recent release of the complete works for organ by Franz Liszt on the NCA label.

In December 2011, on the newly-installed organ at the Musikverein, Martin Haselböck will perform the Hindemith Organ Concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Martin Haselböck’s immersion in the great repertoire of classical church music through his role as Court Organist of Vienna inspired him to establish the period-instrument Orchester Wiener Akademie in 1985. In addition to performing an annual series of concerts in Vienna’s Musikverein, he and his orchestra are regular guests and resident artists in concert halls and opera productions around the world. Over 60 recordings with Wiener Akademie, in repertoire ranging from Bach to the early 20th century, have been released under his direction. Among the awards for his orchestral recordings are the Diapason d'Or and the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis. In June 2010 the orchestra marked its 25th anniversary with a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the Musikverein.
As Conductor in Residence of the Raiding Liszt Festival, Martin Haselböck will direct Wiener Akademie in a major project to perform and record the complete tone poems of Franz Liszt throughout the 2010 and 2011 seasons.

Martin Haselböck now enjoys a busy career as a guest conductor with the world’s leading orchestras. He has conducted the Wiener Symphoniker, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Hamburg Sympony, Dresdner Philharmonie, the Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi Milano, the National Philharmonic Orchestras of Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia, Orchestre National de Lyon, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, among many others. In North  America his conducting engagements have included concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh, Washington, San Francisco, Detroit and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Recently Martin Haselböck made his debut with the Vancouver Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. In the coming seasons he will conduct numerous orchestras in Europe, North America and Asia.

Martin Haselböck was appointed Music Director of the Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra in Los Angeles in 2004. With this ensemble he performs a regular concert series in California and frequently tours abroad. In 2007, with the combined forces of Musica Angelica and Wiener Akademie, he undertook a large-scale tour of Bach's Matthäuspassion with 13 concerts in Mexico, the USA, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Germany and Austria.


Martin Haselböck has enjoyed a distinguished career as an opera conductor since making his debut at the Göttingen Handel Festival. He was the first to stage new productions in Germany of the great Mozart operas on period instruments, and in 1991 his production of Don Giovanni was awarded the Mozart prize by the City of Prague. Since 2000 he has led fourteen new productions at festivals in Salzburg, Schwetzingen, Vienna and in the opera houses of Hamburg, Hannover, Cologne and Halle. In 2007 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Reinsberg Festival in Lower Austria, where he has conducted acclaimed productions of Der Freischütz, Fidelio and Hänsel und Gretel.

At the invitation of Valery Gergiev, Martin Haselböck will conduct Giulio Cesare the Mariinsky Theatre in 2013 ? the first time a baroque opera will be produced there.

With the American actor John Malkovich and Austrian director Michael Sturminger, Martin Haselböck developed the theatre drama The Infernal Comedy, about the serial killer Jack Unterweger, a piece for actor, two sopranos and onstage orchestra. Following its initial run at Vienna’s Ronacher Theatre in June 2009, the work has enjoyed enormous success. The production continues to tour extensively, with performances at major venues in Luxembourg, Brussels, Istanbul, Toronto, Quebec City, Bilbao, Prague and London. A new project with John Malkovich as Casanova,
with music from the Mozart ? Da Ponte operas, will premiere in Vienna in January 2011 and tour throughout 2011 and 2012.

Martin Haselböck has received numerous honours and awards, including the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art (das Österreichische Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst), the Prague Mozart Prize in 1991, and the Hungarian Liszt Prize.

On 1st June 2010, on the occasion of Wiener Akademie’s 25th anniversary, Martin Haselböck was awarded the Great Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (Große Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich).

2011/2012
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