Martin Waddington graduated in French at Exeter University before becoming a Theatre Musical Director in 1973. He was Resident MD at Exeter, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Plymouth and Ipswich and has conducted freelance in theatres up and down the country. 

In the early 80’s he was Associate Director of the Royal Theatre in Northampton, working as actor, director, writer and musical arranger. He was Composer-in-Residence for the Ludlow Shakespeare Festival for three years running, writing scores for As You Like It, Love’s Labors Lost and Macbeth. He conducted the national tour of Annie and in 1991 was Musical Supervisor of the Dutch version of Les Misérables. He stayed on to conduct Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd which toured Holland and Belgium. His own musical De Spooktrein [The Ghost Train]  premiered in Rotterdam in 1996 and ran for one-and-a-half years. He has been Co-ordinator of the one-year Postgraduate Musical Theatre Course since 1998 and has arranged and conducted Me and My Girl, Sweeney Todd, Guys and Dolls, Damn Yankees, Kiss me Kate, Gypsy, Cabaret, Annie,The Pirates of Penzance, Sweet Charity, Oklahoma! A Chorus Line Anything Goes and Kiss me, Kate (Broadway revival version) for GSA. Postgraduate productions have included A Little Night Music, The Canterbury Tales, The Apple Tree, Lucky Stiff, and Bluebirds.

He returns regularly as Maestro of Seasonal Sauce directed by Helen Watson, presented at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury. His next engagement is conducting Bernstein's West Side Story at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, in July 2010.