Dieter Kaufmann

Dieter Kaufmann (22 April 1941 – 23 September 2025) was an Austrian composer remembered for electronic music.

Kaufmann was born on 22 April 1941 in Vienna and grew up in Carinthia. He studied music, German philology, art history, cello with Karl Schiske, composition with Gottfried von Einem. He studied composition further in Paris, with Olivier Messiaen and René Leibowitz. He studied electro-acoustic music with Pierre Schaeffer and François Bayle at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales of the French Radio in Vienna and Paris.

From 1970, Kaufmann taught electro-acoustic music at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna. He headed two master-classes, one for composition (since 1990) and the other for electro-acoustic composition (since 1997). He was head of the department for composition, conducting and sound engineering studies from 2000 to 2002. Kaufmann was president of the Austrian ISCM section from 1983 to 1988, president of the Society for Electro-acoustic Music in Austria (GEM) from 1988 to 1990. From 2001 to 2003 he was president of the Austrian Composers Union and in 2001 he became president of “Austro Mechana”, the Austrian Copyright Society administering the mechanical rights of authors.

In 1975 Kaufmann founded, together with his wife Gunda König, the K&K Experimentalstudio in Vienna, an ensemble for musical theatre that toured in Europe, North America, Latin America, Egypt and Taiwan.

Kaufmann wrote works in several fields of music: chamber, symphonic, and vocal music, musical theatre (four operas and many multi-media works), piano and organ works, works for wind orchestra, electro-acoustic, live electronic and computer music, as well as works in applied art. He had been awarded numerous national and international prizes, e.g. Förderungspreis der Stadt Wien (1967), Förderungspreis des Landes Kärnten (1974), Kompositionspreis des Musikprotokolls beim Steirischen Herbst (1975), Magisterium für elektroakustische Musik in Bourges, France (1988), Ernst-Krenek-Preis of the City of Vienna (1990), Prize of the City of Vienna for Music (1991), Würdigungspreis des Landes Kärnten (1992), Würdigungspreis des Bundes (1996).

Kaufmann was married to Gunda König, a singer and actress.

Kaufmann died on 23 September 2025, at the age of 84.