Biography
Jesús Ortega Martínez is the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Bayer-Philharmoniker, as well as the Chief Conductor of the Bergson Phil’. Based in Munich since 2022, he is developing an ascending international career spanning both symphonic and operatic repertoires, including debuts at the Hessisches Staatstheater and with the Kammeroper München, where he conducted productions of Die Zauberflöte and Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Regularly appearing in prestigious venues such as the Herkulessaal, the Prinzregententheater, and the Forum Leverkusen, he has conducted orchestras including the Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Cardiff Sinfonietta, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, Münchner Symphoniker, Bad Reichenhaller Philharmoniker, Berliner Symphoniker, Orquestra Simfònica de les Balears, Seinäjoki Orchestra (Finland), Neubrandenburg Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica Ciudad de Elche, and the Young Symphony Orchestra of Augsburg.
In recent seasons, he has been invited to international festivals such as the stARTfestival and the Richard-Strauss-Tagen, collaborating with renowned soloists including Ramón Ortega Quero, Anush Hovhannisyan, Lioba Braun, and Thomas Ebenstein. His versatility also extends to film music, having conducted recordings with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
He served as Assistant Conductor at the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg (Austria) and to British conductor Leo McFall for several seasons. Equally experienced in opera, he has been Assistant Conductor at the State Theatre Augsburg, the Gärtnerplatztheater (Munich), and the Goetheanum in Basel, collaborating on productions including Turandot, Parsifal, and Werther.
The young musician possesses a transversal education as both conductor and instrumentalist. He began his training as a classical guitarist at the Conservatorio Superior de Alicante, where he obtained his Master’s degree with Distinction and the National Prize for Academic Performance, in addition to several awards in international competitions. Subsequently, he studied Conducting and Early Music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where he had the opportunity to conduct works by Bach with the prestigious RIAS Kammerchor. He completed his academic training with a Master’s in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (HMTM) under Marcus Bosch and Georg Fritzsch, in addition to participating in masterclasses with conductors such as Sir Roger Norrington, Jorma Panula, Atso Almila, and Colin Metters.
Passionate about exploring new repertoires and concert approaches, he regularly combines Baroque and Renaissance repertoire in his symphonic programs, including music by Gabrieli, Dowland, Rameau, or Telemann. Committed at the same time to contemporary creation, he has performed over ten premieres in Germany in recent seasons. Highlights include conducting the revival of Stephan Wolpe’s Schöne Geschichten at the Musiktheater am Reaktor and the premiere of the Vivace! project at Munich’s Bergson Kunstkraftwerk. As Chief Conductor of his resident orchestra, the Bergson Phil’, he performed over twenty concerts in the last season, establishing the ensemble as one of the most exciting orchestral formations in Munich. This new ensemble, acclaimed by public and critics, specializes in combining symphonic repertoire, early music, contemporary works, and jazz with AI-assisted acoustics in the new Elektra Tonquartier concert hall.