Martin Rajna
Conductor
Martin Rajna has become one of the most outstanding young conductors emerging from Hungary in recent years. At the age of 29, and already with an outstanding resumé, he was early this year appointed as the new Music Director of the Luxembourg Philharmonic, with a four-year contract beginning in September 2026.
In the present 2024/25 season, Rajna is still marking several significant European debuts: in addition to Luxembourg, he has taken the podium at the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice. In July, 2025, he will conduct in the Tyrol Festival in Erl (Austria) a new production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Poulenc’s La Voix humaine, both directed by Claus Guth.
At the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, which has engaged him since 2021 and appointed him as principal conductor in 2023, he has most recently been on the podium for Der fliegende Holländer, Macbeth, Die Fledermaus and Maria Stuarda. He also continues to conduct concerts with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra.
Rajna’s previous awards include a scholarship in 2022 to participate in the Forum Dirgieren programme of the German Music Council and he was also selected for the Conducting Fellowship of the Lucerne Festival Academy where his mentor was Thomas Adés. In 2018, he won Hungary’s Junior Prima Award and in 2023 he was the winner of the György Cziffra Festival Talent Prize.
In previous seasons, Rajna has conducted the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Hof Symphony Orchestra, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Slovenia in Ljubljana and orchestras in Budapest such as the MÁV, Danubia and Dohnányi Symphony Orchestras.
Martin Rajna graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied with Ádám Medveczky and András Ligeti and furthered his training at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar under conductors Nicolás Pasquet and Ekhart Wycik. In 2021 he was selected to participate in the mentoring programme of the Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation, where he worked with such masters as Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág, Fabián Panisello and Magnus Lindberg. In 2023 he was assistant conductor for Maestro Ádám Fischer during the annual “Budapest Wagner Days”.
