Wolfgang Rihm was born in Karlsruhe on 13 March 1952. He began composing at the age of eleven—studying with Eugen Werner Velte at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe during 1968–72, with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne during 1972–73 as well as with the late Klaus Huber at Freiburg’s Staatliche Hochschule für Musik during 1973–76. He received an honorary doctorate from Berlin’s Freie Universität in 1998.

Among his numerous honours are the Preis der Stadt Stuttgart in 1974, the Berlin Kunstpreis Stipendium in 1978, a residency at Villa Massimo in Rome from the Deutsche Künstlerakademie during 1979–80 and the Beethoven-Preis der Stadt Bonn in 1981. He was elected jointly to the Akademien der Künste in Berlin, Mannheim and Munich in 1991 and received a Prix de Composition Musical de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco in 1997. He was made Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2001 and received the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis in 2003.

He first taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe during 1973–78 and was professor of composition there since 1985, dividing his time between Karlsruhe and Berlin.