Martin Isepp, who worked as an accompanist, conductor and vocal coach, died on Christmas Day. For several years he was associated with Glyndebourne where he worked with many generations of singers from 1957 until 1978 and then again between 1994 and 2007, first as head of the music staff and later as chief guest coach.

The son of an Austrian émigré artist who came to the UK in 1938, Isepp studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, and then at the Royal College of Music. His mother Helene was a fine singer; she numbered Janet Baker and Heather Harper among her pupils, and Isepp would serve as accompanist. His first professional post was with the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh (where he played the piano part in the premiere of The Turn of the Screw), but it was Glyndebourne that dominated his life. In the 1970s he was head of the Juilliard School’s opera training department in New York. Also in New York, he was associate conductor at the Metropolitan Opera during which period he led a couple of much-admired performances of Così fan tutte, standing in for an indisposed James Levine. In addition, he was head of music studies at the National Opera Studio from 1978 to 1995, and between 2006 and 2008 was head of music at the Opera Akademie of the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen.

As an accompanist, Isepp worked with many great singers including Elizabeth Söderström, Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, John Shirley-Quirk, Hans Hotter, Frederica von Stade, Hugues Cuénod and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Among the younger generation, the American tenor Nicholas Phan, who worked with Isepp over four seasons at the Malboro, recalled him as ‘a tough and demanding coach…He never let one note of music be poorly sung, nor one phrase pass by unexamined or unstylishly turned. Yet, despite being so rigorous and exacting, his manner was, for the most part, very gentle. If he didn’t like something one did, he would sigh as if disappointed that you had broken his favourite piece of china and then begin to go about gently prodding the musician he was working with in a different direction, gradually cajoling them to approach the phrase or note in a way that would suddenly unlock the mysteries of the music at hand. At the end of these moments, the 'Eureka!' light bulb would shine brightly, and the cobwebs of confusion and musical befuddled-ness would disappear.’

James Jolly