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Born 1945 in Vienna. Guitar studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna as well asautodidactic music studies. Since 1977 lecturer for guitar and jazz as well as from 1984 to 1995 full professorship for guitar and jazz music at the University of Graz. Guitarist Harry Pepl is one of those musicians that has influenced the Austrian jazz nationally and internationally. As a musical frontier he juggles safely and highly flexible with the different styles of jazz and contemporary music.

In his uncompromising focus and phrasing in waves over a fixed pulse, he influenced a jazz-idiom that can be described as European. His music captivates with vitality, density, musical wholeness and radical emotion. During his career he colaborated with major international musicians, including Benny Goodman Quint., Dave Holland, Dino Saluzzi, Daniel Humair, Jon Christensen, Michel Portal, Werner Pirchner, Wolfgang Puschnig, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Liebman, Mino Cinelu. His desire to push the boundaries of his own instrument, led him to the occupation with technical innovations, based on the MIDI guitar.
His works originated from that occupation, based on the technique of "instant composing." Pepl plays the individual voices with the guitar into the computer and can correct the distribution of voices before the final score, but cannot correct the composition itself. The timing of the composition is reduced to a minimum, shape and sound originate from the moment. The interplay of individual voices can be heard after being transposed to the piano. Harry Pepl is regarded as a major exponent of the "real-time composing." The musician himself: "... essential for the success of the synthesis of time and superior time is only a fulfilled moment ..."