Stephan Schmidt (he is of German origin) is regarded as one of the most innovative guitarists of the present day. For several years now, he has been living in Bern, Switzerland, where he teaches at the Hochschule for Musik und Theater. After a classical training at Trossingen, Paris and New York (crowned by his winning of First Prize for Interpretation at the Thirtieth International Guitar Competition organised by Radio-France in Paris in 1988), his artistic work was decisively influenced by his meeting with the composer Maurice Ohana and his discovery, in 1983, of the latter's music for tenstring guitar. Stephan Schmidt's recording of Ohana's complete guitar works earned him the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Academie Charles Cros, as well as an award at the French Victoires de la Musique in 1994.

His repertoire is now based on two different aspects: the performance of masterpieces by great composers, such as J.S. Bach, Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough and Bruno Maderna, and work in collaboration with other artists from very different aesthetic worlds, as exemplified in his concerts with Pedro Bacan (flamenco guitar), Fred Frith (electric guitar), Elisabeth Chojnacka (harpsichord), Ramon Jaffe (cello), and many others.

In 1998 he was appointed artistic director in charge of master classes at the Conservatoire in Bern. He has organised and directed many artistic and interdisciplinary meetings, including a week devoted to 'Russian Music in the Twentieth Century' in 1999, to which he invited an icon of twentieth-century Russian music, the composer Galina Ustvolskaya.