Karlheinz Essl (born 15 August 1960) is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser, and composition teacher.
At the University of Vienna he studied musicology and wrote his doctoral thesis on "Das Synthese-Denken bei Anton Webern" (1989).
Since 2008, he is working on Sequitur, a series of compositions for various solo instruments and live electronics.
While working on commission at IRCAM in Paris (1992–1993), he was composer-in-residence at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (1990–1994).
In 2003, he was artist-in-residence of the festival musik aktuell, and in 2004 he was presented with a series of portrait concerts at the Brucknerhaus Linz.