Martin Pickard is a member of Opera North and was the company’s Head of Music from 2008-2015. He studied Modern Languages at Cambridge, followed by conducting and répétiteuring studies at the RCM. His operatic career began in Germany, where he conducted a repertoire ranging from Handel to Penderecki. He joined Opera North in 1989 and has conducted more than two dozen productions there including The Marriage of Figaro, Macbeth, Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin, Carmen, Tosca, Der Rosenkavalier and Peter Grimes. In 2003 he was assistant to Jiří Běelohlávek on the landmark Glyndebourne production of Tristan und Isolde, and since then he has returned regularly as a member of the festival’s music staff. He made his Glyndebourne conducting debut in 2005 with The Bartered Bride. He has also worked at ENO, Buxton Festival, Perth International Arts Festival (Western Australia), Bregenzer Festspiele and Tiroler Landestheater (Innsbruck) . His singing translations of Russian opera arias have been published by Edition Peters and ENO has performed his translations of Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart (2010) and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (2011). He is active as a piano accompanist, working with artists including the soprano Lesley Garrett, the mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers and the violinist David Greed.