Magnus Lindberg (born in 1958, Helsinki) is one of the internationally best known Finnish composers of today. He was the New York Philharmonic's composer-in-residence from 2009 to 2012 and is the London Philharmonic Orchestra's composer-in-residence from the beginning of the 2014/15 season.

Lindberg studied composition at the Sibelius Academy with Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen (graduated 1981). The latter encouraged his pupils to look beyond the prevailing Finnish conservative and nationalist aesthetics, and to explore the works of the European avant-garde. This led around 1980 to the founding of the informal grouping known as the 'Ears Open Society' including Lindberg and his contemporaries Hämeeniemi, Kaipainen, Saariaho and Salonen, which aimed to encourage a greater awareness of mainstream modernism. Lindberg made a decisive move in 1981, travelling to Paris for studies with Gérard Grisey, the developer of spectral music, and Vinko Globokar, whose interests lay in the social functions of performing and in improvisation in contemporary music. The IRCAM and the impressive figure of Pierre Boulez contributed significantly to Lindberg's mental landscape.

Formal organizational techniques such as serialism and musique concrète were important features of Lindberg’s early works. In the 1990s he became more concerned with harmonic structure, and a broad range of styles including minimalism, free jazz and rock became evident in his work. Throughout the 1990s he became increasingly drawn towards large-scale forms, describing the orchestra as his favourite ‘instrument’.

Among the many prizes he and his music have won are the UNESCO Rostrum in 1982 for ...de Tartuffe, je crois and in 1986 for KRAFT, the Prix Italia 1986, the Nordic Music Prize 1988 for KRAFT, the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for large-scale composition in 1992 and the Wihuri Sibelius Prize 2003.