Volker David Kirchner (25/06/1942 - 04/02/2020), a German composer, from Mainz. He comes from a family with a long musical tradition. He studied at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory of Mainz from 1956-1959 with Günter Kehr (violin) and Günter Raphael (composition) and at the Cologne Musikhochschule from 1959-1963 where he also attended master classes of Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He was solo violist of the Cologne Rheinisches Kammerorchester (1962-1964), and after further studies with Tibor Varga in Detmold, he was taken on as violist in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. As violist of the Kehr Trio, he toured South America, North Africa and the Near East, studying thoroughly non-European music.