Martin Haselböck

Biography

As a conductor, organist, and composer, Martin Haselböck has distinguished himself in many diverse ways in international music life. After studies in Vienna and Paris, and winning international competitions, he earned first an outstanding reputation as a solo organist, performing under the direction of conductors Abbado, Maazel, Muti, and Stein, as well as making over fifty solo CDs. His vast repertoire includes the entire range of organ and harpsichord repertoire from the Middle Ages to Contemporary. Numerous prominent contemporary composers have written compositions for Martin Haselböck, among them Ernst Krenek, who dedicated his two organ concertos to him.

Martin Haselböck is Professor of Organ at the University of Vienna, and gives master classes in Europe, the USA and Japan on a regular basis. He also regularly serves on the juries of the world's most prominent organ competitions.

While in his official role as Court Organist for Vienna and responsible for an extensive repertoire of classical church music, he began an intense commitment to conducting. This led to his founding in 1985 the now-famous Vienna Akademie Ensemble. With this orchestra, Haselböck established a year-round cycle of concerts for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. It has now become a favorite of guest artists from the music centers of Europe and Japan.

From September 2005, Mr. Haselbock also takes the position of Music Director and Conductor of Musica Angelica, which is Southern California’s premier period chamber ensemble.

Over 60 CDs, with repertoire from Baroque to 20th century vocal and instrumental works under the direction of Martin Haselböck, have been released. Such a prodigious output of excellent recordings has earned him the Deutsches Schallplatten critics' prize as well as the Hungarian Liszt Prize.

Martin Haselböck has also been a guest conductor for numerous orchestras: Vienna Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Flemish National Philharmonic, Radio Orchestra Hilversum, and the National Philharmonics of Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Over the past few years in the U.S., Mr. Haselböck made his conducting debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Since his debut with the Handel Festival in Göttingen, his career as an opera conductor is also unfolding. He has conducted several times at the Zürich Opera, and he performed Mozart operas in new productions in the Theatre im Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen for the first time in Germany with historic instruments. His "Don Giovanni" in 1991 earned him the Mozart Prize of the City of Prague. In 2000-01 he created with the Wiener Akademie new productions of Händel's "Acis and Galatea", Gassmann's "La Contessina", and Haydn's "Die Feuersbrunst". 2002 followed with the first productions with the Festival in Schwetzingen (Benda's "Il buon marito") and Salzburg (Händel's "Radamisto"). In 2004, he will lead productions of Händel's "Il trionfo del tempo" (Salzburger Festspiel), Mozart's "Il re pastore" (Klangbogen Wien), Händel's "Radamisto" (touring to Spain, Istanbul, Venice, Israel Festival, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam), and a concert version of Porpora's "Il Gedeone" for Musica Angelica in Los Angeles.

When not conducting or performing solo concerts, he is busy unearthing long lost vocal/instrumental works in the dusty archives of Kiev and Vienna, finding unpublished gems by Biber, Porpora, Fux, Muffat, and the Bach family. These he transcribes and resurrects in historical re-creations for his Wiener Akademie Ensemble and festivals around the world.

(June 2005)