He is a trumpet player born in Marietta, Georgia who came from a musical family where his father is a band director at Westminster Schools in Atlanta, his mother is a singer in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and his brother, Michael, is a trumpeter with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His wife, Margaret, is a pianist and organist.
He started studying the trumpet with Larry Black, who was trumpet payer with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, while at high school in Marietta. He then took further studies at the Eastman School of Music and while a student there was awarded a fellowship to play in the New World Symphony in 1997. He had earlier been a member of the Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps in 1993.
In 1998 he became the Associate Principal Trumpet with The Philadelphia Orchestra and remained there for three seasons before joining the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trumpet. He stayed with the ASO until 2005 when he was appointed Principal Trumpet with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was the featured soloist on the soundtrack of the film Lincoln, with the solo written by the composer, John Williams, specifically for him. Other solo performances with the CSO included over a dozen performances of Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 by J.S. Bach, a program of concertos by Henri Tomaso and Andre Jolivet and the world premiere of Heimdall’s Trumpet by Christopher Rouse along with many others. Taboo by Julie Giroux was another composition written for him.
He continued to perform with the CSO until 2016 when he became Principal Trumpet with the New York Philharmonic. Until he resigned from the CSO in 2017 he commuted between Chicago and New York to perform with both orchestras.
As a chamber musician he has performed with the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra and the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra as well as with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Recordings he has performed on include Live by Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass, music for the soundtrack of Lincoln by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, John Williams at the Movies and Asphalt Cocktail (The Music of Johan Mackey) by Dallas Winds and the soundtrack of the 2021 West Side Story.
In the field of musical education he co-founded the National Brass Symposium with his brother in 2010. He has been on the faculties of Northwestern University and Temple University and joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in 2018. He has been a coach for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and for his outstanding contributions to wind music he received the Edwin Franko Goldman Memorial Citation for the American Bandmasters Association in 2016.
Sources:
- https://chrismartintrumpet.com/about
- https://csosoundsandstories.org/wp-content/uploads/CSO3_SepOct14_Martin.pdf
- https://nyphil.org/about-us/artists/christopher-martin
- https://allisyar.com/2017/02/16/trumpeter-christopher-martin-makes-move-to-ny-phil-permanent/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Martin_(trumpeter)
- https://www.yamaha.com/artists/christophermartin.html
- https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/VIDEO-New-York-Philharmonic-Principal-Trumpet-Christopher-Martin-Performs-the-Post-Horn-Solo-in-Mahlers-Symphony-No-3-20200419
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/6328657-Christopher-Martin-14
- https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/martin-christopher