Swiss composer and radio producer Conrad Beck was born on 16th June 1901 in Lohn, Schaffhausen. After short time of mechanical engineering studies at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich and private music lessons with Müller-Zürich, he started to attend the Zürich Conservatory, where he studied composition with Volkmar Andreae, counterpoint with Reinhold Laquai and piano with Carl Baldegger. He stayed in Paris between 1924 and 1933, where he studied with Jacques Ibert and socialise with the circle surrounding Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger and Albert Roussel. At the suggestion of Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, who promoted his career more than any other composer, he settled down in Basel in 1934. During a period of over 50 years, Sacher commissioned his works and conducted their premieres with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Collegium Musicum Zürich. From 1939 to 1966 Beck worked as music director of Swiss Radio in Basel, a position that enabled him to do a great deal to promote contemporary music. His honours include the composition prize of the Schweizerischer Tonkünstlerverein (1954), the Ludwig Spohr Prize of the city of Brunswick (1956) and the Basle arts prize (1964). He is dying on 31st October 1989 in Basel.

   Italian composer Luciano Berio was born on 24th October 1925 in Oneglia, Italy into a family of musicians (his father Ernesto and his grandfather Adolfo were organists and composers). His career as pianist was interrupted by injury of his right hand on the first day he was conscripted into the army during World War II. He stayed in military hospital, before he fled to fight in resistance. After war he studied composition at the Milan Conservatory with Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Giorgio Federico Ghedini until 1951, when Berio went to the United States to study serial methods with Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood. In 1950 he met young American student, singer Cathy Berberian who he married shortly after his graduation and they divorced in 1964. They had daughter, Christina (*1953).  After his trip to Tanglewood, Berio returned to Milano where he took on work for the Italian radio and television network (RAI). Work for RAI brought him to close contact and lasting friendship with Umberto Eco. In 1955, thanks to his interest in electronic music, Berio is co-founding with Bruno Maderna an electronic music studio in Milan called Studio di Fonologia. Many composers such as Henri Pousseur and John Cage worked there. He also produced an electronic music periodical, Incontri Musicali. Darmstadt summer schools (Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik), where he meets Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti and Mauricio Kagel. Berio is posted as Composer in residence in Tanglewood in 1960. Two years later is invited by Darius Milhaud to substitute for Milhaud at Mills College, Oakland, California. From 1965 till 1971 he teaches at the Juilliard School of Music. He is founding the Juilliard Ensemble, which was promoting contemporary music by performing. His students were Steve Reich, Luca Francesconi Louis Andriessen, Phil Lesh and others. In 1965 he is again married to philosopher Susan Oyama, who he divorced in 1972. They had daughter Marina (*1966) and son Stefano (*1968).  He is returning to Italy in 1972 and buying land and buildings at Radicondoli. Restoration, vineyards and fruit trees planting took over next two years. In 1975 he is moving in. In 1974-1980 is director of IRCAM electro-acoustic division in Paris. Collaboration with Pierre Boulez. He is married for the third time with Israeli musicologist Talia Pecker in 1977. Two sons were born from the marriage, Daniel (*1978) and Jonathan (*1980). Berio is opening Tempo Reale in Florence in 1987. Luciano Berio was awarded many honours and prizes. Honorary Doctorate from City University, London (1980), In 1988 he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, prestigious Siemens-Musikpreis (1989), Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University (1993-1994), Distinguished Composer in Residence at Harvard University (1994-2000), Honorary Doctorate from University of Siena (1995), Praemium Imperiale conferred by the Japan Art Association (1996), president of Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome (2000). Luciano Berio is dying 27th May 2003 in a hospital in Rome.

   German composer and composition teacher Wolfgang Fortner, was born on 12th October 1907 in Leipzig. Thanks to his parents - singers, he started to learn the piano and the organ very early and began to compose when he was only nine years old. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory composition (with Hermann Grabner), the organ (with Karl Straube) and at the Leipzig University musicology (with Theodor Kroyer), German studies (with Hermann August Korff) and philosophy with (Hans Driesch). His early compositions were already officially performed during his studies. He taught at the Heidelberg Church Music Institute, as appointed lecturer, composition and music theory (1931–54), the North-West German Music Academy in Detmold (1954–7) and the Freiburg Musikhochschule (from 1957). In 1935 he founded the Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra to support New Music. In 1946, together with Wolfgang Steinecke, he started Darmstadt summer courses. Fortner's reputation as one of the leading composition teacher cannot be overlooked, he influenced whole generation of young composers from the 1950s to the 1970s. His students including Arthur Dangel, Diego H. Feinstein, Hans Werner Henze, Milko Kelemen, Arghyris Kounadis, Ton de Kruyf, Bruce MacCrombie, Roland Moser, Diether de la Motte, Nam June Paik, Graciela Paraskevaídis, Mauricio Rosenmann, Dieter Schönbach, Manfred Stahnke, Peter Westergaard, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Heinz Werner Zimmermann. Fortner was a member of various cultural-political bodies: the Berlin Academy of Arts from 1955, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts from 1956, president of the German section of the ISCM (1957–71), president of the Dramatists' Union in 1975 and artistic director of Musica Viva in Munich (1964–78). He received various prestigious awards include the Schreker-Prize Berlin (1948), the Brunswick Spohr prize (1953), the North Rhine-Westphalia Grand Art Prize (1955), the Hamburg Bach prize (1960), the Freiburg Reinhold Schneider prize and the Gold Pin of the Dramatists' Union in 1977. On his 70th birthday he was awarded the "Grosses Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" and Honorary Doctorate of the Universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg. He died on 5th September 1987 in Heidelberg.