Volker David Kirchner, born in Mainz on 25 June 1942, comes from a family with a long musical tradition. He studied at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory of Mainz from 1956-1959 with Günter Kehr (violin) and Günter Raphael (composition) and at the Cologne Musikhochschule from 1959-1963 where he also attended master classes of Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He was solo violist of the Cologne Rheinisches Kammerorchester (1962-1964), and after further studies with Tibor Varga in Detmold, he was taken on as violist in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. As violist of the Kehr Trio, he toured South America, North Africa and the Near East, studying thoroughly non-European music.

In parallel to his work as orchestra musician, he founded the Ensemble 70 in Wiesbaden in 1970 and worked as composer of incidental music at the Wiesbaden Hessisches Staatstheater from 1972-1974. Since 1988 Volker David Kirchner has worked as freelance composer; his work covers all genres, including numerous works for the music theatre and in particular chamber music and orchestral works. His opera Gilgamesh, commissioned by the Niedersächsische Staatsoper of Hanover on the occasion of the EXPO 2000, was premiered in May 2000, his latest opera Ahasver, commissioned by the Bielefeld Theatre, was firstly given in Bielefeld in May 2001.

Volker David Kirchner has been awarded numerous prizes and honours, including the Award of the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate for Young Composers, for his first opera Die Trauung (1974), the Arts Award of the Rhineland-Palatinate (1977), the Gutenberg Medal of the City of Mainz (1992), the Music Award of the Rheingau Music Festival (first prize, 1994) and, in 1995, the Composition Award of the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung and the Kreissparkasse of Hanover. In 1992 he became a member of the advisory board of the Villa Musica Foundation in Mainz.