Born in Geneva on 1941, Gérard Zinsstag is an outstanding composer and musician. He began his studies at the Calvin College and the Geneva’s Conservatory of Music before moving to Paris where he pursued his studies at the CNSMDP (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique) from 1961 to 1963, and later to Siena (Italia) at the Accademia Chigiana.

Between 1964 and 1967 Zinsstag lived principally in Rome and traveled throughout Europe as a flutist engaging himself with the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich in 1967.

At the Zurich Conservatory he studied composition with Hans Ulrich Lehmann from 1973 to 1975. He decided to resign from the Tonhalle Orchestra to devote himself exclusively to music composition encountering by Helmut Lachenmann, his professor in Stuttgart and Hannover (1975 – 1977).

He participated to the Darmstadt’s summer course (1976 –78) and in 1979 he lived and worked in the United States mainly in New York and San Francisco. From 1981 to 1982 he was awarded a grant by the German Academic Exchange Programme (DAAD) in Berlin. In 1982 he studied at IRCAM (Paris). Since the foundation of the Tage für neue Musik" festival (Zurich) in 1986, M. Zinsstag is its conductor until 1994.

As a composer, M. Zinsstag has been invited to teach, give seminars and lectures in Zurich, Université de la Sorbonne, IRCAM, CNSMDP, Berkeley university, Bamberg and Moscow. He was also a member of the jury for compositions competitions in Arezzo, Paris, Parma, Taipei and Triest.