Heinz Holliger

Heinz Holliger is a Swiss oboist, composer and conductor, born in Langenthal in 1939. He studied composition with Sándor Veress in Bern and with Pierre Boulez in Basel, and oboe in Paris with Pierre Pierlot. Berio, Carter, Henze, Lutosławski and Stockhausen are among the composers who wrote works for him, and his own music, including the Scardanelli-Zyklus, has appeared on several ECM recordings. Holliger won first prize for oboe at the Geneva competition in 1959 and in Munich in 1961, and later taught at the Freiburg Musikhochschule.