Peter Ablinger was born in 1959 in Schwanenstadt, Austria. He studied graphic arts and piano in Linz, where he became interested in free jazz. In 1979, he began studying composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, continuing his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna under Gösta Neuwirth and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati. In 1982, he moved to Berlin, where he taught at the Musikschule Berlin-Kreuzberg and directed numerous festivals and concerts, including Klangwerkstatt Berlin. In 1988, he founded Ensemble Zwischentöne. The Ensemble, working with both professional and amateur musicians, has brought to life works by artists such as Christian Wolff, Christina Kubisch, Antoine Beuger, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, and Benedict Mason. Since 1993, he has been a regular guest instructor at the University of Graz. He has been a guest conductor of the Insel-Musik Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, and United Berlin. From 2012 to 2017, he was a research professor at the University of Huddersfield in England.

In 1998, he was awarded the Busoni Composition Prize by the Akademie der Künste Berlin. In 2001, he won the Villa Aurora fellowship and residency in Los Angeles. In 2008, he received the Andrzej Dobrowolski Composition Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the Deutschen Klangkunstpreis in 2010, and, in 2011, the Ad Libitum prize for composition.

Alongside composers Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang, and Nader Mashayekhi, he founded ZEITVERTRIEB WIEN BERLIN, a music publisher that seeks to depart from conventional forms of music publishing with attention to and support for other aspects of musical practice, such as performance contexts, sound installations, instrument building, and recording.

Peter Ablinger’s music is founded in a deep interrogation of the nature of sound, which, he believes, must be used for itself, outside of any symbol or signifier. Sound is an end in itself, rather than the means for musical creation, and demands to be heard rather than “listened to” or “understood.” Timbre, time, and space - all core elements of composition - are thrown into question in his work.

Most of his pieces are installations that call on a specific natural or constructed environment. The sounding result thus varies depending on where the pieces are performed. Certain compositions allow listeners to imagine the sounding result for themselves, with listening pieces such as Wege (Weiss / Weisslich 9, 1986-1993) and Orte (Weiss / Weisslich 10, 1994). The cycle Weiss / Weisslich is a series of works in which sounds are not necessarily produced by musicians or instruments, a theme that continues in pieces such as Sehen und Hören, which features photographs (1994-2003) or Arboretum, in which a circle of trees is designed and planted based on the collection of acoustic data (1996-2008). While his installations have often been categorized as visual art, rather than as sound pieces, they place visitors in the role of listeners, and hearing may arise from seeing, as in Übersetzungen 1-8 (1997).

Ablinger, as is common in the visual arts, designs his works in series or cycles, such as Weiss / Weisslich,  Instrumente und ElektroAkustisch Ortsbezogene Verdichtung, Instrumente und Rauschen, Quadraturen, and Augmented Studies. The same themes emerge and reemerge within them, addressed in slightly different ways or shown in different lights.

Much of Ablinger’s work is “in progress,” consisting of open and endlessly evolving pieces.