Martin Achrainer, bass-baritone
Martin Achrainer, a native of Tyrol/Austria, completed his Drama and Musical training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar before he began his classical singing education with Prof. Rotraud Hansmann at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Further formative teachers were Brigitte Fassbaender, Robert Holl, Charles Spencer, Irina Gavrilovici and Reto Nickler.
From 2004 until 2006 his first engagement was at the Tyrolean State Theatre. Since the 2006/2007 season he has been a permanent member of the opera ensemble at the Linz State Theatre, where he sings leading roles of his vocal fach.
Martin Achrainer’s diverse opera repertoire ranges from the main parts of Mozart’s operas such as Don Giovanni and Leporello in “Don Giovanni”, Giuglielmo in “Così fan tutte”, Count Almaviva in “The Marriage of Figaro”, to Marcello in Puccini’s “La Bohème”, Harlequin in “Ariadne in Naxos” by Richard Strauss and Sid in “Albert Herring” by Benjamin Britten.
He works with famous conductors and directors such as Dennis Russell Davies, Kurt Masur, Reinhard Schwarz, Ralf Weikert, Dietfried Bernet, Brigitte Fassbaender, Harry Kupfer, Olivier Tambosi und Jochen Ulrich.
In addition to his opera work Martin Achrainer dedicates his time and passion to extensive concert travels, which have lead him to main concert halls in Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Japan and the United States.
He feels equally at ease with New Music (Glass, Schwertsik) and jazz inspired music (Bernstein, Weill) as with the classical repertoire, such as Bach’s Passions, the great works of classic and romantic sacred music and works of modern contemporary music.
Martin Achrainer’s second musical love is the Lied. He has delved deeply into the rich treasury of German songs and also includes more unusual and rarely heard works into his programs.
In 2004 he was awarded the German Drama Prize of the Doppelfeld Foundation for his interpretation of Papageno at the opera festival of “Schloss Rheinsberg” (Berlin). He also won prizes at several international contests such as the Robert-Schumann contest (Zwickau), the Hugo-Wolf Prize (Vienna), the Gradus ad Parnassum and the Hilde Zadek competition for literature of the 20th century (Vienna).
In 2009/2010 Martin Achrainer sang the title role in the world premiere of the opera “Kepler”, dedicated to him by Oscar-nominated composer Philip Glass, which was subsequently staged in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and other venues. Well known composers such as Kurt Schwertsik, Alexander Balanescu, Paul Engel, Ernst Ludwig Leitner and Ingo Ingensand have composed works for him. Numerous CD, radio and TV recordings document the diversity of his musical work.
Highlights of the 2011/2012 season include the role of Marcello in “La Bohème” and Guglielmo in “Così fan tutte” at the State Theatre in Linz, a concert with the Symphony Orchestra Basel with Dennis Russell Davies (Rudolf Kelterborn, “Espansioni”) and the bass parts of Joseph Haydn’s “The Creation” with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra at the KKL Lucerne under Howard Arman. In the summer of 2012 he will debut at the Bregenz Festival and will premiere the “Songs of Milarepa”, written for him by Philip Glass, at the Classic Festival in Ernen (Switzerland).