Martin Rajna is one of the most outstanding young conductors emerging from Hungary in recent years. As of 2023, he has worked as principal conductor at the Hungarian State Opera, he was appointed early 2025 as the new music director of the Luxembourg Philharmonic, and from 2026, he is to be co-artistic director of the Wagner Days, at Müpa Budapest alongside Ádám Fischer. Between 2021 and 2025, he was principal conductor of the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra. Despite his young age, he is a recurring guest with the leading symphonic orchestras of Hungary, and he makes regular appearances all over Europe.
In the 2025/26 season, his commitments at the Hungarian State Opera includes Lohengrin, Turandot, La bohème, and Aida, he will make his debut with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra at Bozar in Brussels, and conduct Bartók’ Bluebeard’s Castle and Poulenc’s La Voix humane at Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence. He will also begin his appointment as co-artistic director of the Budapest Wagner Days and return to conduct the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra and the Pannon Philharmonic.
In previous seasons, Rajna conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra, and the Hof Symphony Orchestra. His opera repertoire included Der fliegende Holländer, Attila, L’italiana in Algeri, Die Fledermaus, Don Giovanni, Macbeth, Maria Stuarda, and Il barbiere di siviglia. In July 2025, he conducted new productions of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Poulenc’s La voix humaine, both directed by Claus Guth, featuring Barbara Hannigan, Florian Boesch, and Christel Loetzsch at the Tyrol Festival in Erl, Austria.
Martin Rajna’s awards include Hungary’s Junior Prima Award in 2018, a scholarship in 2022 to participate in the Forum Dirgieren programme of the German Music Council, and he was the winner of the Conducting Fellowship of the Lucerne Festival Academy. In 2023, he was the winner of the György Cziffra Festival Talent Prize. 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 Ádám Fischer during the Budapest Wagner Days.
