Chief Conductor
Martin Kerschbaum
The Austrian-born conductor completed his entire musical education in Vienna. The experiences he gained as an orchestral musician with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra continue to shape his work as a conductor.
Martin Kerschbaum began his career as a conductor in 2000 with a concert of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Vienna Konzerthaus, after which he was hailed as the “discovery of the evening” in the review by the newspaper Die Presse. His contribution to the official Mozart Year 2006 was particularly successful, with a concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus as chief conductor of the Vienna Classical Players under the motto “Mozart and the Turks,” as well as a double-CD recording of Mozart’s violin concertos with the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, Rainer Honeck.
In addition to CD recordings of all Haydn cello concertos in June 2008, Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s concertos for violin and violin and piano in 2009, and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in 2010, a premiere recording of Franz Danzi’s Cello Concerto in E minor also received considerable acclaim that same year. In 2014, a CD with the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra was released featuring a premiere recording of Franz von Suppé’s Concerto No. 2 and Kurt Schwertsik’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
Martin Kerschbaum has recorded more than 30 recordings to date as part of the Austrian National Bank’s “Precious Sounds” series.
From 2008 onwards, Martin Kerschbaum regularly toured Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, France, and Switzerland with the K&K Philharmonic Orchestra and was repeatedly invited as guest conductor to the Beethoven Festival in Thiersee (Tyrol).
In August 2009, he made his Bregenz Festival debut as part of a major open-air concert. Since 2010, he has been invited several times to conduct concerts as part of the Vienna Concert Association’s contemporary concert series “Art from the Times.” Since 2013, he has also conducted the closing concert of the International Wind Music Camp every two years at the Bregenz Festival Hall.
In 2010, an invitation from Maestro Vladimir Fedoseyev brought him to Moscow for the first time, where he conducted the renowned Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra in works by Haydn and Mozart. This was followed by further invitations. Further debuts followed, including with the Orquesta de Córdoba in Spain, the WDR Cologne Radio Orchestra, and the Würzburg Philharmonic.
Martin Kerschbaum has been chief conductor of the Vienna Classical Players since 2003. In addition to concerts in Austria, he has toured with this ensemble to Malta, Italy, Germany, France, Turkey, and Japan.
Guest conducting engagements with various orchestras have taken Martin Kerschbaum to Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Malta, San Marino, Egypt, and Kazakhstan, as well as to Switzerland, Türkiye, and the USA.