BIOGRAPHY
Principal Resident Conductor of the Chemnitz Opera House since 2020 he has been Principal Resident Conductor and Deputy Music Director of the Opera Houses in Krefeld and Mönchengladbach from 2016 to 2020. Diego Martin-Etxebarria first came to international attention when he was awarded First Prize, the Hideo Saito Award and the Asahi Award at the Tokyo Conducting Competition in 2015.
Highlights of the season 2021/22 include opera (Verdi's Aida, Wagner's Lohengrin, Mozart's The abduction from the Seraglio, Humperdinck's Hänsel and Gretel and Lehár's The merry widow) and ballet (Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and Swan Lake as well as Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet) at the Theater Chemnitz as well as several concerts leading the Robert Schumann Philharmonie. He will also give his debut at the Teatro Principal de Palma de Mallorca (Spain) conducting Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and will come back to the Arriaga Theater in Bilbao to conduct a stage production by Calixto Bieito of Bach's Christmas Oratorio leading the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra.
Music Director of the Euskadiko Ikasleen Orkestra in 2007 and 2008 and the Akademisches Orchester Freiburg between 2010 and 2012, he has been invited by international orchestras such as the Osaka Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Nagoya Philharmonic, Kansai Philharmonic, Osaka Symphony, Central Aichi Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, Philharmonisches Orhester Freiburg or the St. Petersburg State Capella Symphony. In his homeland he has conducted the Spanish Radio and Television Symphony, Bilbao Symphony, Euskadi Symphony, Galicia Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Tenerife Symphony, the City of Granada Orchestra, Málaga Philharmonic, Oviedo Philharmonia, Vallés Symphony as well as the Spanish National Orchestra.
In the operatic field, he has conducted Paul-Heinz Dittrich's Die Verwandlung and Die Blinden at the Berliner Staatsoper; Puccini's La Bohème at the Theater Augsburg, Donizetti's Don Pasquale in Terrassa; Donizetti's Rita at the Volksbühne in Berlin; Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore in Vigo, Ourense and Pontevedra; Montsalvatge's Puss in boots at the Teatro Real in Madrid; Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Kleines Haus Dresden; Bizet's Carmen at the Santa Florentina Festival, Adés' Powder Her Face at the Arriaga Theater in Bilbao; Llorca's Tres sombreros de Copa at the Teatro La Zarzuela (Madrid) Tempesta Esvaïda at the Fortuny Theatre in Reus; Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Menotti's The Consul, Verdi's Nabucco, Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Offenbach's Orphee aux Enfers and Kálmán's Die Faschingsfee at the Opera Houses in Krefeld and Mönchengladbach.
He has recently recorded an album for SONY with music by Albert Guinovart conducting the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra as well as Udo Zimmermann's opera “Der Schuhu und die fliegende Prinzessin” for Deutschlandfunk. Previous recordings include the CD "Intimitats" with award-winning music by composer Marc Timón, the lyric comedy "La Viola d'Or" by Enric Morera (Enderrock Award for Best Classical Album Review 2016), the DVD "Sinfokids 2” at the head of the Euskadi Symphony Orchestra and the short opera by Joaquim Serra Tempesta esvaïda conducting the Camera Musicae Orchestra.
Martin-Etxebarria began his musical studies at the Conservatories of Amurrio and Vitoria and graduated in orchestra conducting at the University of Music of Catalonia. He was granted by the Humboldt Foundation and the DAAD-La Caixa for post-graduate studies in opera conducting at the Hochschulen in Weimar, Dresden and the Academia Chigiana in Siena with Gianluigi Gelmetti. Other conductors who have influenced his career include Riccardo Frizza, Donato Renzetti, Dima Slobodeniouk, Christopher Seaman, Jesús Lopez Cobos, Titus Engel and Lutz Köhler.