Martin Jaggi was born in Basel in 1978. He has been playing the cello since he was 7 and received his first composition lesson by his father, the composer Rudolf Jaggi. From 1995-96 he studied composition with Rudolf Kelterborn and from 1996-2000 cello with Reinhard Latzko and composition with Detlev Müller-Siemens at the Basel University of Music. He then studied with Walter Grimmer at what was then the University of Music and Theater in Zurich (concert diploma with distinction in 2002). He also attended master classes with Claude Starck, Colin Carr and Ivan Chiffoleau (cello) as well as with Marc-André Dalbavie and Helmut Lachenmann (composition). From 2004 to 2006 he completed postgraduate studies in composition with Manfred Stahnke at the Hamburg University of Music.

For Martin Jaggi, the focus of his work as an interpreter is his activity in the Ensemble Phoenix Basel. From 2000 to 2013 he was a cellist in the Mondrian Ensemble, which he co-founded. Jaggi is also the solo cellist of the Basel sinfonietta.

At the beginning of Jaggi’s career as a composer was the performance of the Sahara cycle as part of the European Music Month 2001 in Basel. Since then, numerous commissions have followed, including from the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Festival Archipel Geneva, the Bern Music Festival, Pro Helvetia, the Ensemble Phoenix Basel, the Collegium Novum Zurich, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Austrian Ensemble for New Music and the Donaueschinger music days. His works have been performed and recorded by various radio stations in numerous European and Asian countries as well as in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and South Africa. The orchestral work «Trieb» and the string quartet «Gharra» were included in the CD documentation «Grammont Sélection» with outstanding Swiss premieres. In 2015 a portrait CD was released on the Musiques Suisses/Grammont Portrait label.

Since 2016 he has been teaching New Music Interpretation at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (National University of Singapore). Martin Jaggi lives and works in Singapore and Basel.