On a recommendation by Kehr, he then studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln from 1959 to 1963, where he was influenced by composers Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez.

[3] As a chamber musician, he played viola in the Kehr Trio, with his teacher as the violinist and cellist Bernhard Braunholz, recording and touring in South America, North Africa and the Near East.

During the 1980s, Generalmusikdirektor Siegfried Köhler promoted his operas in Wiesbaden,[6] conducting in 1981 Das kalte Herz (The cold heart) after a fairy-tale by Wilhelm Hauff, revised in 1987 for a performance on 27 October 1988 at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich.

[1][2] The production at the Staatsoper Hannover was staged by Hans-Peter Lehmann in a set design by Ekkehard Grübler, and conducted by Stefan Sanderling.

[2][6] Musicians such as violinists Ulf Hoelscher and Christian Tetzlaff, violist Tabea Zimmermann, cellists Yo Yo Ma, Wolfgang Boettcher and Martin Ostertag, and pianists Lars Vogt and Nina Tichman played his music, in collaboration with conductors such as Gerd Albrecht, Leif Segerstam and Eliahu Inbal.

[9] Invited by Walter Fink, he was the third composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival (RMF) in 1992.

[6] In 2010, he was one of five living composers, with Toshio Hosokawa, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann, whose music celebrated the 80th birthday of Walter Fink in a concert of the Rheingau Musik Festival.

[13] Kirchner's works were published by Schott, including:[3] Opera Sacred music Orchestra Concertante Chamber music Keyboard Kirchner's mass Missa Moguntina was recorded in 1993, with soloists Maria Karb, Alison Browner, Mads Elung-Jensen, Johannes M. Kösters and Gregory Reinhart, organist Albert Schönberger, the Mainzer Domchor and Domkantorei St. Martin, and the Mainzer Domorchester, conducted by Mathias Breitschaft.

[26] In 2016, a recording of vocal chamber music was released entitled Media vita in morte sumus (In the midst of life we are in death) – vocal chamber music by Volker David Kirchner, containing three song collections, Obsidian-Gesänge on poems by Dana Obsidian for voice, horn, violin, cello and piano (2013), Es ist ein Weinen in der Welt, setting poems by Else Lasker-Schüler, for voice and piano (2011–2013), and Media vita in morte sumus on poems by Erich Michelsberg for soprano, clarinet, horn, piano and string trio (2006–2007).

[28] In 1995, he received the composer's prize of the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung and the Kreissparkasse Hannover, and in 2007, the Peter Cornelius Plaque [de] of Rhineland-Palatinate, the highest honour of the state.