Born in Bern in 1924, Huber studied violin and music pedagogy at the Zurich Conservatory from 1947 to 1949 with the legendary violinist Stefi Geyer (a dedicatee of concertos by Béla Bartók and Othmar Schoeck), before commencing six years of composition studies there with Willy Burkhard in 1949. Huber subsequently continued his composition studies with…

Alois Hába was a composer, music theorist, and teacher who pioneered the use of quarter-tones, sixth-tones, and other microtonal divisions of the octave. 

Sofia Gubaidulina was born in Chistopol in the Tatar Republic on 24 October 1931. She studied the piano (with Grigory Kogan) and composition, and graduated from the Kazan Conservatory in 1954. Until 1959 she studied composition at the Moscow Conservatory with Nikolai Peiko, Shostakovich’s assistant, and then did postgraduate work under Vissarion Shebalin. She has…

Michael Finnissy was ISCM president 1990 – 1996. Michael Finnissy was born in Tulse Hill, London in 1946 and studied at the Royal College of Music. He later studied in Italy with Roman Vlad. He went on to create the music department of the London School of Contemporary Dance, and has been associated as composer with…