Heinz Holliger was born in Switzerland in 1939. He began his musical studies at the conservatories of Bern and Basel (1955-1959), notably with Sandor Veress in composition. He then attended the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) where he remained from 1962-1963, studying oboe with Emile Cassagnaud and Pierre Pierlot and piano with Yvonne Lefébure. From 1961 to 1963, he also took composition courses with Pierre Boulez in Basel.

Holliger won first prize for oboe in the Geneva International Music Competition in 1959, and again at the Munich Competition two years later, launching his career as a highly successful performer; he would go on to become one of the most highly regarded oboists in the world, pushing the technical limits of the instrument with new playing methods and inspiring myriad new compositions for oboe from composers such as Berio, Carter, Ferneyhough, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

In addition to his work as a soloist and an orchestra conductor, Holliger is a highly respected teacher, and began teaching at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (Germany) in 1966.

Holliger the composer long remained overshadowed by Holliger the musician but in the 1980s his music slowly began receiving recognition. Ultimately, he received numerous awards and honors in the field, including the Schweizerischer Tonkünstlerverein in 1984, Denmark’s Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the Frankfurt Prize in 1987, the City of Basel Arts Prize in 1989, the Ernst-von-Siemens Prize in 1991, and the 1994 Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco’s Composition Prize for his orchestral piece (S)irató. In 1995, he was awarded the Premio Franco Abbiati della critica musicale italiana of the Venice Biennale for his cycle Scardanelli-Zyklus. From 1993-1994 he was composer in residence with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and with the Lucerne Festival in 1998. In October 1998, after the second performance of his opera Schneewittchen in Zurich, Holliger was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich. In 2007, he became the first composer to be awarded the Zurich Festival Prize. In 2009, the Pro Europa Foundation awarded him the 2009 European Cultural Prize. In 2015, the Swiss Federal Office of Culture awarded him the Swiss Music Prize, and in 2017, he received the Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. In 2018 he was honored with the Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts, awarded by the President of the German Federal Republic. In 2022, he was awarded the Robert Schumann-Preis für Dichtung und Musik and the Grand Prix du Disque 2022 for the recording of Lunea on the ECM label.

Holliger’s compositions span every genre, from works for stage to solo pieces, including a number for his own instrument, such as Studie über Mehrklänge (1971) and for the harp, which his wife Ursula played professionally (both solo works and pieces for harp and oboe such as Mobile, written 1962), as well as many works for voice and orchestra, including ConcErto…?, a commission from Kölnmusik for the twentieth anniverary of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which premiered in May 2001. Holliger drew inspiration from poets haunted by madness and death, such as Hölderlin (the cycle of seasons Die Jahreszeiten, 1975-1979), Trakl, Celan, Walser (Beiseit, 1990-1991, Schneewittchen, 1997-1998), and Beckett (Va et viens, 1976-1977. Heinz Holliger lives in Basel. His scores are published by Schott.