MDM first gained recognition in 1991 as the drummer of the Munich-based art rock band Brother Virus with their debut album Happy Hour – Live at the Knitting Factory (TUTU/ENJA Records). With this band, he was a regular live guest on the ARD/BR political talk show Veranda: Guests with Dagobert Lindlau.

From 1993 to 1995, he lived and worked in New York City as an active member of the “downtown avant-garde” scene around the legendary clubs Knitting Factory and CBGB’s. During this time, he studied drums with Dennis Charles, Gene Jackson, Sam Ulano, Michael Carvin, and Joey Baron, as well as contemporary music with Prof. Dr. Dinu Ghezzo (NYU) and the Georgian master composer Giya Kancheli.

In 1995, MdM moved to Berlin.

From 1997 to 1999, he traveled through Romania and Bulgaria on a DAAD scholarship and studied Eastern European folklore at the Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca. During this time, he co-founded the jazz ensemble and international musicians’ network "Interzone" together with Romanian pianist Mircea Tiberian. Over a period of 20 years, the project produced 15 albums and numerous international tours involving more than 50 renowned musicians from Western and Eastern Europe. The ensemble became known for its distinctive fusion of contemporary jazz with influences from Eastern European folklore.

In 2000, he founded the Berlin Jazz Composers Ensemble. Within this context, the work "Transylvaniana" was created, reflecting his folklore research and regarded as a highlight of his work in Eastern Europe.

Between 2000 and 2005, de Martin was the drummer in various formations of the Polish “Yass” scene, including Olo Walicki’s Metalla Pretiosa, Adam Pierończyk’s Digivooco, and the trio of pianist Leszek Możdżer.

At the same time, he worked in Berlin with free jazz bassist Sirone and collaborated internationally with Elliott Sharp, Gary Thomas, Tim Berne, John Taylor, Terje Rypdal, Palle Mikkelborg, Melvin Gibbs, and Herb Robertson.

Since 1999, de Martin has been a permanent member of the renowned contemporary music ensemble "zeitkratzer". With the group, he has performed and released works by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and James Tenney, as well as music by Kraftwerk and Whitehouse. This led to collaborations with Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Alvin Lucier, Arto Lindsay, Keiji Haino, Carsten Nicolai, Oval, Manuel Göttsching, and Terre Thaemlitz.

From 2003 to 2008, he was part of the trio "3D" with Christopher Dell (vibraphone), with whom he released two albums on the NotTwo label. Between 2008 and 2010, three extended stays in Seoul led to collaborations with traditional samulnori musicians and Buddhist drum monks.

His collaboration with his friend and colleague Mircea Tiberian lasted from 1997 until Tiberian’s death in 2025. Their last jointly released recording was the duo project "Dance around the Drageon Tree" (2018). De Martin also published an obituary for Tiberian in the Bucharest-based journal "Revista Cultura".

As his most recent work in Romania to date, MdM realized "On the Stairs of the Wind" during the COVID pandemic, a homage to the Romanian-German poet Rolf Bossert. The piece premiered in October 2021 (and again in 2022) at the "German State Theatre" Timișoara. In an interview with "FunkForum", the platform of the German minorities in Romania, MdM reflects on his work there during the lockdown.

From 2006 to 2009, de Martin worked as a composer, performer, and musical director at the "Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz" in Berlin (directed by Thomas Ostermeier) and collaborated with the choreographers Sasha Waltz and Constanza Macras.

From 2009 to 2012, he lived in Switzerland, where he earned a Master’s degree in Contemporary Arts Practice at the Bern University of the Arts. During this time, he served as musical director of the Zurich-based theatre group "PLASMA" and collaborated with the Bern-based electronic music collective "Mathon @ Everest Records".

As a sound artist, he realized the 8-channel listening piece "Morgenarbeit" in 2016 as Artist in Residence at MuseumsQuartier Vienna / Tonspur Passage, focusing on the Lipizzaner horses of the "Spanish Riding School" Vienna.

From 2018 to 2020, he collaborated with Dirk Dresselhaus (aka Schneider TM), Hilary Jeffery, and Susanne Sachsse on a revival of the “International Ladies’ Show Band GIRLS,” originally founded in 1967 by his mother Anny de Martin. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of her death, he initiated the reenactment album "GIRLS – Tell the Drummer I Still Love Her", released on his newly founded label IZBITINZID Records, on which he has since released four albums.

To date, de Martin has contributed to nearly 100 album releases, 15 of them as a leader and four on his own label.

In 2020 and 2021, he worked as a musical facilitator in the psychiatric emergency care unit of the Immanuel Clinic Rüdersdorf near Berlin, where he developed his methodology of “time practice,” which he now applies within his project "CHRONARTA".

In 2021, he and his family established a second residence on a farm in Saxony at the foothills of the Ore Mountains, where he set up a studio.

There, in 2022, he created the avant-manele album "Radical Cultural Approximation", centered on the traditional Romanian țambal mic, and in 2024 the album "Maurice de Martin Piano Trio – Conversation with Myself", for which he recorded all instruments of a classical piano trio himself using a multi-stage solo recording technique developed during the pandemic. The album pays homage to Bill Evans’ solo duo studio album of the same name (1963), on which he improvised with himself.

In 2023, together with Swiss performance artist Saskia Edens, he realized the multidisciplinary work "Danse Macabre" at Zwingli Church Berlin—a reflection on the medieval motif of the dance of death, situated between performance art, video, improvisation, and early music. The work emerged from a collaboration with baroque tenor Jan Kobow, lutenist Andreas Arend, and reciter Mariel Supka under the title "Kürbishütte @ Instantopia", featuring texts by Simon Dach and compositions by the early Baroque Königsberg composer Heinrich Albert. A short film based on the project was produced by documentary filmmaker Vincent Schläger.

This work also marks a symbolic departure from the Berlin independent scene and from the contemporary cultural field as such, from which MdM had increasingly distanced himself. The physical move into maximum distance condenses in this work into a turning point: a fork in the road—and a conscious departure toward new horizons.

In collaboration with "Jugend.Kunst.Schule" Frankenberg and the Saxon Rural Women’s Association, the Landfrauenband was created in 2023—a participatory format bringing together women of different generations from rural areas. Over the course of three months, an independent stage program with music, dance, and visuals was developed from scratch. Supported by guest artists from advanced pop contexts, a collective “signature music” emerged.

The premiere of "Utopische Landfrauen" took place on December 8, 2023, at the World Theatre Frankenberg. The project combined empowerment with collective authorship and social practice. A limited mini CD, "Landfrauenband – Impromptus on a Prepared Piano", documents part of the complex overall work and is available digitally on "Bandcamp".