Olaf Van Gonnissen began studying the violin at the age of four and at eight he "switched" over to the guitar. From 1970 to 1975 he studied music having been awarded a full scholarship "Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes" from the University of Frankfurt with Prof. Heinz Teuchert.

In 1973 he founded, together with Michael Teuchert, the legendary "Frankfurt Guitar Duo" that toured in the seventies and eighties all around the world and was documented by more than 100 television and broadcast productions. More than 120,000 copies of their seven DUO-CDs have been sold to date.

Since 1974 Olaf Van Gonnissen has been teaching at the "Academy for Musical Arts" in Darmstadt, since 1977 at the University of Frankfurt (Musikhochschule) and in 1999 he became a Guitar Professor at the 'University of Music and Theatre, Hamburg'.
He is especially interested in performing art of ancient music but has also performed a wide range of both avantgard and ancient music on historical instruments such as: the Lute, Vihuela and Baroque Guitar. He is a member of the MUTARE Ensemble of Frankfurt since 1992 which mainly performs avantgard music. He is the first time guest artist at the Rotenburg Guitar Week.