Georg Friedrich Haas was born in Austria in 1953. He studied composition with Gösta Neuwirth, piano with Doris Wolf, and music pedagogy at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz from 1972 to 1979. He then pursued advanced studies with Friedrich Cerha at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna from 1981 to 1983. He participated in the Darmstadt Summer Courses in 1980, 1988, and 1990, and in Cursus (a composition and computer music course with IRCAM) in Paris in 1991. He received several fellowships, notably from the Salzburg Festival in 1992, a Young Composers' Grant from the Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Culture in 1995, and from DAAD in 1999.

Based on the integration of the harmonic spectrum (Concerto for violin and in vain) as well as on the dialectic that exists between individual parts and the resulting whole (… Einklang freier Wesen …), Haas's music – which always results in sound experiments - is highly original and invites its audience to discover uncharted territories in the world of music. The composer, aware of the limits imposed by the sonic and harmonic possibilities offered by the system of equal temperament, developed an interest in the microtonal (Nacht). He has also written several pieces to be performed in total darkness, as a kind of tribute to his own attachment to the indistinct.

His works have been performed at many festivals, including Donaueschingen, Musica in Brussels, Musica Viva in Munich, Klangspuren Schwaz in Austria, and Wien Modern. He was also the Festival Composer for the Borealis Festival in Bergen, Norway, in 2006. His opera Melancholia, based on a text by Jon Fosse, premiered on 9 June 2008 at the Palais Garnier in Paris, France. In 2010, at the Donaueschingen Musiktage, the premiere of Limited approximations, his concerto for six micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra, won the WR Symphony Orchestra Composition Prize.

Since 1978, Haas has taught counterpoint, composition technique, analysis, and an introduction to microtonal music at the Graz Conservatory. In 2003, he was appointed to a faculty position there. He has published articles on the works of Luigi Nono, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Alois Hába, and Pierre Boulez. From 2005 to 2013, he taught composition at the Music Academy of the City of Basel, Switzerland. In 2013, he succeeded Tristan Murail as the MacDowell Professor of Music at Columbia University (New York).

• Sandoz Prize, 1992.
• Ernst Krenek Prize of the City of Vienna for the chamber opera Nacht, 1998.
• International Rostrum of Composers Prize for Violinkonzert, 2000.
• City of Vienna Prize for Music, 2002.
• City of Vienna Prize for Music, 2004.
• German CD Critic Prize for the album String Quartets N° 1 and 2, recorded by the Kairos Quartet, 2005.
• Andrzej Dobrowolski Composition Award, presented by the Province of Styria/Austria in Graz, 2005.
• Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis of the Republic of Austria, 2007.
• SWR Symphony Orchestra Composition Prize for Limited approximations, 2010.
• Salzburg Music Award, 2013.