Martin Hiendl was born and raised in the Bavarian Forest in the south-east of Germany. His music involves both instrumental and electronic sources and examines ecstasy, large-scale processes and experimental notation. Hiendl's music has been played in Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, at the ZKM Karlsruhe, the Hammer Museum Los Angeles and in San Diego. In Frankfurt he studied piano, conducting and composition with Beat Furrer, among others. He completed his studies at the University of California San Diego with Roger Reynolds.

In 2010 Beat Furrer conducted the premiere of his short opera »Erwartung und Traumverlust« for which Claudia Doderer designed the stage. Together with video artist Monica Duncan he has been selected to be part of the ICElab program 2013. As a pianist he played and recorded Feldman's »For Philip Guston« with Rachel Beetz and Dustin Donahue and he conducted Fausto Romitelli's video opera »An Index of Metals«. In various workshops he met Peter Ablinger, Mark Andre, Pierluigi Billone, Orm Finnendahl, Heiner Goebbels, Klaus Lang, Phillippe Manoury, Brice Pauset, Enno Poppe, Miller Puckette, Vladimir Tarnopolski and others.

He is currently living and working in Berlin.