Biography
Jesús Ortega Martínez is, since 2025, the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Bayer-Philharmoniker. 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 Munich Chamber Opera, 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 recently conducted recordings with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
He served as Assistant Conductor at the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg (Austria) for several seasons, collaborating with Leo McFall on major works such as Strauss’s Alpine Symphony and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9. Equally experienced in opera, he has been Assistant Conductor at the State Theatre Augsburg and the Gärtnerplatztheater (Munich) for productions of Turandot, La Bohème, 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. 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. Some highlights include the revival of Stephan Wolpe’s Dadaist opera Schöne Geschichten at the Musiktheater am Reaktor and the premiere of the Vivace! project at Munich’s Bergson Kunstkraftwerk. Here he regularly conducts his resident orchestra, the Bergson Phil’, having performed over twenty concerts in the last season. This new ensemble, acclaimed by public and critics, specializes in combining symphonic repertoire, early music, and contemporary works with AI-assisted acoustics in the new Elektra Tonquartier concert hall.