One of Martin Rummel's most treasured possessions is a signed copy of Alfred Schnittke's cello sonata, acquired as a result of his work with the composer some years ago. Schnittke was one of many composers who have been associated with Martin Rummel since he was sixteen – an indication of a musician with both depth and breadth of musical interests. Martin Rummel began his studies in 1982 at the age of eight, his main teachers being Maria Kliegel and William Pleeth. He graduated from Linz Bruckner Conservatory in 1991 and Cologne Musikhochschule in 1997, in both places with highest merits.
His exceptionally broad repertoire (including more than 35 cello concertos) ranges from the Baroque to contemporary works, containing the main standard repertoire together with a particular interest in rarely played works of the 19th and 20th centuries and the cross-over to Jazz and Popular Music. Another important part of his work is the collaboration with composers, which so far has resulted in ca 20 premieres, amongst them Graham Whettam's Solo Cello Sonata (1993) and the Cello Concertos by Helmut Rogl (1994), Helmut Schmidinger (1994) and Graham Whettam (2000). Martin Rummel has also played many national first performances, e.g. Sofia Gubaidulina's "In Croce" (China 1999), Morton Feldman's Piano Trio (Italy 2000) and Howard Blake's "Diversions" (Germany 1993 and Austria 1997). During the last few years, he has played in Düsseldorf Tonhalle, Vienna Konzerthaus, the Krannert Center in Urbana, at the "Carinthischer Sommer", the "Varna Summer" and "La Biennale di Venezia".
Chamber music with distinguished partners such as pianists Yuri Boukoff, Paul Gulda and Ian Hobson, violinists Dénes Zsigmondy and Nora Chastain, clarinetist Eduard Brunner or the Anton Bruckner Quartett is also a major part of his concert activities. Since 2000, he has been artistic director of the festival "kammerMUSIK" in Wilhering, Austria.
In addition to his playing career, Martin Rummel is now more and more focusing on teaching, and recent master classes include the International Summer Academy in Lenk, Switzerland, on special invitation of Kurt Pahlen, and Tianjin Music Academy, China. Since October 2000, he has been teaching at Kassel Music Academy.