Marcus Weiss was born in 1961 in Basel, Switzerland. He studied saxophone at the Musikhochschule Basel under Iwan Roth, as well as at Northwestern University, Chicago, with Frederick L. Hemke. He was a soloist with various European orchestras and as a chamber musician with the Trio Accanto and XASAX. Many composers composed works for him, including Georges Aperghis, Aldo Clementi, Beat Furrer, Stefano Gervasoni, Vinko Globokar, Manuel Hidalgo, York Höller, Toshio Hosokawa, Michael Jarrell, Hanspeter Kyburz, Helmut Lachenmann, Detlev Müller-Siemens, Giorgio Netti and Salvatore Sciarrino. Weiss is a professor of saxophone and chamber music at the Basel Conservatory and has been teaching in Darmstadt since 2004.