Swiss flutist, composer, educator, and innovator Matthias Ziegler’s work has expanded the sonic, technical, and conceptual boundaries of flute performance. Best known for his performance on low flutes, his extensive career situates Ziegler as one of the most influential avant-garde flutist-composers of his generation. 

Born 1955 in Bern, Switzerland, Matthias Ziegler began playing the flute at age seven—and always explored other soundworlds. While still in high school he started playing drums, saxophone, and guitar and performed classical, pop, and free improvised music. After graduation he started studying architecture at Zurich’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, but after three years switched to pursuing the flute with Conrad Klemm. While at the Conservatory he also attended Bern’s Swiss Jazz School and received instruction from legendary flutist André Jaunet; further studies led him to Geoffrey Gilbert in Florida and William Bennett in Freiburg im Breisgau. 

In 1982 he was appointed Principal Flutist with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Collegium Paul Sacher in Basel. In 1986 he completed his Soloist degree in Freiburg im Breisgau and was invited by harpist Andreas Vollenweider to collaborate on a worldwide tour with his band. At this point he started to explore the world of alto, bass, and contrabass flutes, in collaboration with Eva Kingma. By deliberately using microphones inside the instruments he developed an innovative palette of sounds that are normally only perceived very close to the flute, as if examining it acoustically through a magnifying glass. This new sonic world opened completely new dimensions for improvisation and composition, inspiring composers such as Mark Dresser, Benjamin Yusupov, and many others. 

In 1993, he co-founded the contemporary music ensemble Collegium Novum Zürich and established the series Palladio Musik und Raum, which organized concerts in architecturally interesting locations, combining his interests for music and architecture. From 1997 to 2022 Ziegler taught flute and improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). In 2012 he began performing telematic concerts over the Internet, which became a research project of the Swiss National Science Foundation at ZHdK. 

Ziegler performs on an 1870 Louis Lot C Flute, a Brannen-Kingma quarter-tone flute, Kingma alto flute and “Hoover” upright bass flute, Kingma double contrabass “Monster,” and a Kotato & Fukushima contrabass flute, as well as his own design, the Matusi headjoint, which incorporates a vibrating membrane allowing the player to shift seamlessly between traditional flute timbres and buzzing, reed-like sonorities. 

Matthias Ziegler’s appearance at the NFA Convention has been made possible by a grant from the Swiss Arts Council. 

Read the Flutist Quarterly tribute at flutistquarterly.org/matthias-ziegler/ (link opens in new window; log-in required).