Born in Kolozsvár (then Austria-Hungary, now Romania (Cluj-Napoca)), Sándor Veress began studies in composition under Zoltán Kodály and piano under Béla Bartók at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest in 1925. He was educated in methodology and ethnomusicology from 1929 onwards by László Lajtha at the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography before embarking upon his first independent expedition to the Moldova region of Rumania in 1930. In 1935 he became Bartók's assistant in the department of folk music at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and succeeded Kodály as Professor for Composition at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest in 1943.
Veress emigrated to Switzerland in 1949. Following a short spell as a guest professor at Bern University's Institute of Musicology, Veress then took up a position at Bern Conservatory, where he taught composition, general musical education and various theoretical subjects between the years 1950 and 1981. It was here and during this time that he counted a whole generation of important Swiss composers among his students, including Heinz Marti, Jürg Wyttenbach, János Tamás, Daniel Andres, Urs Peter Schneider, Heinz Holliger and Roland Moser.
Veress worked as a guest professor at various US and Australian universities throughout the sixties and early seventies: From 1965 until 1967 he taught at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, then at the Goucher College in Baltimore/Maryland; in 1967 at the University of Adelaide/South Australia and finally at the University of Portland/Oregon in 1972.
His academic career culminated back at Bern University's Institute of Musicology - first as an extraordinary professor from 1968 onwards, and then as an ordinary professor of ethnomusicology and music of the 20th century from 1971 until his emeritus in 1977.
Veress became a Swiss citizen late in life (1991) and died in Bern on March 4, 1992.
Sándor Veress is an important exponent of the second generation of the 'Budapest School', of which Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály were the founding fathers. He taught important third-generation composers such as György Ligeti and György Kurtág in Budapest. Similar to Bartók, Veress developed an entirely autonomous musical language that was as rooted in Hungarian music as it was universal. His comprehensive education was the bedrock for a humanism and cultural sensitivity that was already manifest in his early chamber music and allowed him, following his emigration to Switzerland, to take a very individual approach to twelve-note composition. A substantial number of works composed in Switzerland were premiered in Bern and Basel by the Camerata Bern, Berner Kammerorchester, Berner Symphonieorchester and Basler Kammerorchester. Sándor Veress received the Canton of Bern's Grand Music Award in 1976, the Bartók-Pásztory Award in 1985, the Schweizerischer Tonkünstlerverein's Composer Award in 1986 and the City of Bern's Music Award in 1987.