Martin Grubinger jun.

Austrian multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger is a regular guest with many leading orchestras and at the world’s top venues. He has an unusually broad repertoire, ranging from solo works and chamber music with partners, including his own Percussive Planet Ensemble, to percussion concertos. 

As artist in residence with the Vienna Symphony, Martin Grubinger performed with the orchestra during the 2021/22 season in the Vienna Konzerthaus and at the Vienna Musikverein. He has also appeared with orchestras with which he has long-term partnerships, among them the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Gürzenich Orchestra. In addition, he has toured with the Belgian National Orchestra and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, and appeared in concert for the first time with the St Louis Symphony and the Real Filharmonía de Galicia.  

Martin Grubinger was artist in residence at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg during the 2016/17 season and has also had residencies with the Camerata Salzburg, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, and at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Philharmonie in Cologne and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. 

The growing number of works written for Martin Grubinger include Avner Dorman’s Frozen in Time (2007), Friedrich Cerha’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra (2008) and Tan Dun’s Tears of Nature (2012). In 2014 he also gave the German premiere of Peter Eötvös’s Speaking Drums with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducted by the composer. During the 2018/19 season he gave the world premiere of the new Concerto for Percussion written for him by Fazıl Say. Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason has also written a percussion concerto for him.  

He appears regularly at major festivals, including the Rheingau Music Festival, the Heidelberg Spring Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Baden-Baden Easter Festival, the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Brass and Percussion Festival at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. In 2013 he was artiste étoile at the Lucerne Festival. 

Martin Grubinger has won numerous prizes including the Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the prestigious Würth Prize of the Jeunesses Musicales Germany. His first CD, Drums ’ n’ Chant, was followed by a live DVD recording of The Percussive Planet, both for Deutsche Grammophon. He has since recorded projects for various labels. 

Born in Salzburg, Martin Grubinger studied at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz (today Anton Bruckner Private University) and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He quickly gained attention through his appearances at several international competitions, including the Second World Marimba Competition in Okaya in Japan and the EBU Competition in Norway. He is a lecturer at the University of the Arts in Zurich and professor of classical percussion and multi-percussion at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.