Principal Resident Conductor of the Chemnitz Opera House from 2020 to 2023, Diego Martin-Etxebarria was Principal Resident Conductor and Deputy General Music Director of the Krefeld and Mönchengladbach Theatres between 2016 and 2020. He attracted international attention after winning the Tokyo Conducting Competition in 2015.
Recent engagements include concerts at the Bal y Gay Festival conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, at the Krumlov Festival in the Czech Republic conducting the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra with Pablo Sáinz-Villegas as soloist, and Jesús Guridi's opera “Amaya” at the San Sebastián Music Fortnight conducting the Basque National Orchestra.
He has intensified his presence on spanish stages both in the symphonic field, conducting the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra and the Spanish National Orchestra, and in opera, returning to the Spanish Lyric Theatre Festival in Oviedo with “Doña Francisquita” following the success of the previous year with “La rosa del azafrán” and making his debut at the Tenerife Opera with Strauss' “Ariadne auf Naxos”.
He has been invited internationally by the Osaka Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Nagoya Philharmonic, Kansai Philharmonic, Osaka Symphony, Central Aichi Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, the St. Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, the Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg, and the Armenian Philharmonic, among others.
He has conducted over 30 operas, including Paul-Heinz Dittrich's “Die Verwandlung” and “Die Blinden” at the Berliner Staatsoper, Puccini's “La Bohème” at the Theater Augsburg, “Katia Kabanova” at the Kassel Theatre, Prokofiev's “The Love for Three Oranges” at the Heidelberg Theatre, Donizetti's “Don Pasquale” in Terrassa, “Rita” at the Volksbühne in Berlin, “L'elisir d'amore” in Galicia and at the Teatro Principal in Palma, Montsalvatge's “El gato con botas” at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte” at the Chemnitz Theatre, the Kleines Haus in Dresden and the Krefeld-Mönchengladbach Theatres, Bizet's “Carmen” at the Santa Florentina Festival, Ades' “Powder her Face” at the Arriaga Theatre, Llorca's “Tres sombreros de copa” at the Zarzuela Theatre, Humperdinck's “Hänsel und Gretel”, Menotti's “The Consul”, Verdi's “Nabucco”, Puccini's “Gianni Schicchi”, Mascagni's “Cavalleria rusticana”, Kálmán's “Die Faschingsfee”, Offenbach's “Orpheus in the underworld” and Dvorak's “Rusalka” at the Krefeld-Mönchengladbach Theatres, as well as Wagner's “Tristan und Isolde”, Verdi's “Aida”, Janáček's “The Cunning Little Vixen”, Humperdinck's “Hänsel und Gretel”, Mozart's “The Abduction from the Seraglio” and Léhar's “The Merry Widow” at the Chemnitz Theatre.
His repertoire also extends to ballet, having conducted Prokofiev's “Cinderella” and “Romeo and Juliet” and Tchaikovsky's “The Nutcracker” and “Swan Lake”.
His latest recording for SONY is “El lament de la terra”, featuring music by Albert Guinovart, performed by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.
Martin-Etxebarria began studying oboe in the Basque Country and graduated in orchestral conducting from the Catalonia College of Music. He completed postgraduate studies in opera conducting at the Hochschulen in Weimar and Dresden, as well as at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (Italy) with Gianluigi Gelmetti. Other important teachers in his training include Riccardo Frizza, Donato Renzetti, Dima Slobodeniouk, Christopher Seaman, Jesús López Cobos, Titus Engel and Lutz Köhler.
