Born in Germany, Goldmann’s music education began in 1951 when he joined the Dresden boys choir. Years later, composer Karlheinz Stockhausen invited Goldmann to the Darmstadt courses of 1961 and 1962, but he was not allowed to travel after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Due to aesthetic restrictions imposed by East German cultural politics, Goldmann initially was limited almost exclusively to writing theatre music. Since the shift in politics that occurred in the late 1960s, the suppression of New Music was gradually loosened, whichallowed works by a new generation of composers to be performed by newly founded chamber ensembles (such as Gruppe Neue Musik “Hanns Eisler” and Bläservereinigung Berlin), as well as by well-established orchestras (such as Staatskapelle Berlin). As a conductor, he worked with several orchestras and ensembles – including the Berlin Philharmonic. From 1980 until 1991, he taught masterclasses at Berlin’s Akademie der Künste and in 1991 he became Professor of Composition at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, where he was head of the Institute for New Music from 2003 until 2005.