Paul Hindemith was born in Hanau on 16 November 1895. He studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt/Main violin and composition with Adolf Rebner, Arnold Mendelssohn, and Bernhard Sekles. At the age of 20 he became first violin of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra. He had the possibility to play string quartets during his army service, after which he returned to Frankfurt, playing the viola-part in the Amar Quartett from 1921 to 1929.

Since 1923 Hindemith was member of the organization comittee of the Donaueschinger Musiktage, where the first performance of his string quartet op. 16 secured him great reputation. In 1927 Hindemith was appointed professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and in 1929, he gave the first performance of William Walton's Viola Concerto. Hindemith's career as a composer prospered in the thirties, but
as did many others
he suffered with the advent of Hitler and after 1933, his works dissappeared from the concert programmes. He became a exile first in Switzerland (1938), then in America (1940), taking the american citizenship in 1946 and lecturing at the Yale University. In 1951 he accepted the position of a professor in Zurich and finally settled in Switzerland 1953 (in Blonay)

Not only as a leading composer of our century, but also as conductor, teacher, performer and philosopher Hindemith has obtained an assured place in musical history. Hindemith's oeuvre includes compositions of every genre: orchestral works, solo-concertos, chamber music for various instruments, choral works, lieder, operas and ballets. As a musical theoretician he is the author of numerous books and essays.

He died in Frankfurt in 1963.

Hindemith Foundation Website www.paul-hindemith.org