Born in
Merseburg, Schneider studied
music education,
Germanistik and
musicology as well as violin, piano and singing at the
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. His teachers included the musicologist
Walther Siegmund-Schultze and the music historian
Max Schneider. Schneider completed his studies with a diploma and worked as an editorial assistant at the
Rundfunk der DDR. In 1962, Schneider moved to the
Komische Oper Berlin as
assistant director and . From 1970, he became
Spielleiter at the Komische Oper Berlin and worked under
Walter Felsenstein,
Götz Friedrich and , among others. From 1974 onwards, Martin Schneider was "1st Spielleiter" of the
Opernhaus Halle, of which he became
director in 1978. Since 1970, guest productions have taken him to other houses such as the
Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam, the Amsterdam and the
Staatstheater Cottbus as well as to
Deutscher Fernsehfunk. Since 1980, Schneider has been active as a freelancer, director and university lecturer, including teaching assignments at the
University of Music and Theatre Leipzig and at the
Berlin University of the Arts. Since 1982, he had worked at the
Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, first as and from 1986 as
lecturer for "scenic teaching" in the vocal department. From 1992 to 2003, he was
professor and "scenic director" of the Music Theatre. From 2003 until 2006, Martin Schneider was
lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin. Schneider is
Christoph Schneider's father, the drummer of the rock band
Rammstein, and by Constanze Schneider, a designer and costume designer. Together with his wife Antje Schneider, he undertook reading tours with literary-musical programmes. Schneider died at the age of 82. == Further reading ==