Kurt Schwertsik (born 25 June 1935, Vienna) is an Austrian contemporary composer. He is famous for creating the “Third Viennese School” and spreading contemporary classical music. A pupil of Joseph Marx and Karl Schiske at the Academy of Music in Vienna, he later studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and Darmstadt. In 1958 he founded the ensemble "die reihe" with fellow composer and conductor Friedrich Cerha (famous for finishing the opera Lulu, by Alban Berg) and later, in 1968, the ensemble "MOB art & tone ART" with Otto Matthäus Zykan and Heinz Karl Gruber. He served as hornist of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (from 1968) while teaching Composition at the Konservatorium Wien (from 1979). Between 1989 and 2004 he was Professor of Composition at the Vienna Musikhochschule (Academy