Friedrich Schenker (23 December 1942 – 8 February 2013) was a German avant-garde composer and trombone player.

Born in the German town of Zeulenroda, Schenker learned trombone and piano as a child and made his first compositional attempts at the age of 10.

He continued his composition studies in evening classes at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig until in 1968 with Fritz Geißler.

In 1970 he founded the Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler with the oboisten Burkhard Glaetzner and six other musicians from the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester and the Gewandhaus orchester in Leipzig.

As a master student of Paul Dessau at the Academy of Arts, Berlin from 1973 to 1975, Schenker received important impulses for his artistic motivation and aesthetics.