Martha Fischer is associate professor of piano at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where she heads the collaborative piano program. A sought-after accompanist and chamber musician, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe with many nationally recognized singers and instrumentalists. With a particular devotion to Franz Schubert's lieder and chamber music, she co-founded Schubert ensembles in Boston and Washington, D. C. With baritone Paul Rowe, she has recorded Schubert's Winterreise, which was issued by the University of Wisconsin Press along with the book Schubert's Winterreise: A Winter Journey in Poetry, Image, and Song. Ms. Fischer has served as Artistic and Music Director of Opera for the Young, an organization dedicated to bringing fully staged professional operatic performances to school children throughout the nation.

A native of Plymouth, Michigan, Ms. Fischer holds degrees in piano from Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory of Music. Her teachers included Herbert Stessin, Jack Radunsky, Robert Shannon, Edith Oppens, and Victor Rosenbaum. Ms. Fischer and her husband, Bill Lutes, frequently collaborate in concerts of two-piano and piano duet literature. The Washington Post described their traversal of Schubert's Fantasie in F minor as "an energetic performance bursting with heartfelt intensity."

Ms. Fischer also performs as a singer and has presented unique recitals of art song in which she accompanies herself in the tradition of the French singer Jane Bathori. Ms. Fischer is an authority on the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and has performed numerous G&S mezzo-soprano roles in productions around the U. S. She and Mr. Lutes have toured North America with their revue Innocent Merriment: An Evening of Gilbert and Sullivan.

A dedicated teacher, Ms. Fischer has presented papers and served on national panels devoted to the pedagogy of collaborative piano. Her work as collaborative pianist has taken her to international festivals, symposia, and competitions in Sweden, France, and Costa Rica. Among her other recent recordings are Four Elements: Works for Horn and Piano by Female Composers with hornist Lin Foulk, and Reverie with tubist John Stevens.