A Swiss composer born in 1960 in Nigeria, Hans Peter Kyburz has lived in Germany since the age of ten. He studied composition in Graz, with Andrzej Dobrowolsky and Gösta Neuwirth, and then continued his studies in Berlin (1982-1991), where he studied composition with Frank Michael Beyer and Gösta Neuwirth, as well as musicology, art history, and philosophy. He pursued his studies with Hans Zender in Frankfurt and was awarded the Boris Blacher Prize in 1990, the Schneider-Schott Prize in 1994, a fellowship for artistic development from the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1996, and the Ernst von Siemens Prize in 2000.

He has taught in various electroacoustic studios in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and in 1997 was appointed as a professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. In 1998, Kyburz also taught at the Darmstadt Summer Academy, and at the Musikhochschule in Basel from 2000 to 2002, where he also directed the school’s electronic music studio.

His major early works are Cells for saxophone and ensemble (1993-1994), Parts for ensemble (1994-1995), and The Voynich Cipher Manuscript for twenty-four voices and ensemble (1995). After this period, he turned to chamber music, composing pieces such as Danse aveugle (1997) and a String quartet (2003-2004), as well as works for large orchestra – Malstrom, which premiered at the Donaueschingen festival in 1998, and Noesis (2001). Touché, for soprano, tenor, and orchestra, premiered in 2006 at the Lucerne Festival, as part of the Roche Commissions, in partnership with the Cleveland Orchestra and Carnegie Hall.

His compositions have been performed in all of the world’s major contemporary music festivals, including the Berlin Biennale, the Wiener Festwochen, Witten, Donaueschingen, and Musica, as well as by ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Contrechamps, Ensemble Recherche, the Ensemble intercontemporain, Musikfabrik, the Ensemble Modern, and the Ensemble für Neue Musik.

Other key writings include a double collaboration with the dancer Emio Greco Double Points : + (2005), which was performed again in 2011 as Double Points: OYTIΣ with a vocalist singing responses to the dancer; as well as pieces for solo instruments such as Kaspars Tanz (2012) for piano and Tropus (2013) for cello; an orchestral piece, Ibant obscuri, which premiered at Donaueschingen in 2014 in a performance by the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg; and L’Autre for oboe and ensemble, which premiered in 2017 at the Archipel Festival in a performance by Lemanic Modern Ensemble.