Martijn Dendievel

Belgian conductor Martijn Dendievel is the winner of the 2021 German Conductors’ Award and the first Conductors’ Academy of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, as well as a laureate of the LSO Donatella Flick Competition. In June 2022, he became a prizewinner at the first International Conducting Competition Rotterdam. He currently serves as Associate Conductor of Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen and was Principal Guest Conductor of the Academic Orchestra Halle from 2016 to 2020. He is a fellow in the Forum Dirigieren of the German Music Council, which supports him as ‘Maestro von Morgen’ since 2021.

He regularly appears with orchestras and theatres such as Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen, Teatro Comunale Bologna and Philharmonie Zuidnederland, amongst others. In the current season, Martijn will make his debut with the Tonkünstler-Orchester Wien, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Sinfonia Varsovia, and will return to the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Hofer Symphoniker, and the Belgian National Orchestra. In recent years he has conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, Staatskapelle Weimar, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic.

Growing up in family of musicians, he showed a great interest for music during his childhood and took his first musical steps on the violin at the age of three. A few years later, he switched to the cello and started playing the recorder, percussion, and the harpsichord. As an instrumentalist, he gained orchestral experience in various youth orchestras, and has performed in halls such as the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and BOZAR in Brussels.

At the age of 14 he was exceptionally admitted to the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in music theory with distinction, whilst studying cello with Jeroen Reuling. Martijn then moved to Germany to study conducting at the HfM Franz Liszt Weimar with Prof. Nicolás Pasquet and Prof. Ekhart Wycik. In July 2022, he finished his master’s degree in orchestral conducting. Martijn has been mentored by Bernard Haitink, Paavo Järvi, Christian Thielemann and Iván Fischer.