After studying at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music, Martin Pickard began his career in Germany, working as a repetiteur, conductor and chorusmaster in the opera houses of Kiel and Nuremberg. On returning the UK he joined Opera North, where he conducted more than 30 different productions including The Return of Ulysses, The Marriage of Figaro, Macbeth, Falstaff, Carmen, Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin, La Bohème, The Snow Maiden, Madama Butterfly, Der Rosenkavalier and Peter Grimes. From 2008-2015 he was Opera North’s Head of Music.
Outside Opera North he has worked with English National Opera, Opéra Les Azuriales, Bregenzer Festspiele, Buxton Festival, Perth International Arts Festival (Western Australia), Matav Hungarian Symphony Orchestra (Budapest) and Longborough Festival Opera. In 2004 he conducted performances of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Tiroler Landestheater (Innsbruck) in the production by Brigitte Fassbaender.
A long association with the Glyndebourne Festival has seen him working there as an assistant and senior coach for conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Jiří Bělohlávek and Robin Ticciati. In 2006 he made his Glyndebourne conducting debut with The Bartered Bride.
Martin is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Leeds and a visiting coach at the RNCM, the National Opera Studio and the Oxenfoord International Summer School.