Ehsan Khatibi was born in 1979 in Tehran. In his early youth he received lessons in music theory and composition from Alireza Mashayekhi in Tehran, where he also learned to play piano, violin, and santur (a Persian instrument). After studying engineering in Tehran, he focused on music composition and studied at the Tehran University of Art. Then he continued studying composition with Manfred Trojahn and also music theory with Frank Zabel at Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf and completed his master's degree in composition at Universität der Künste  Berlin with Elena Mendoza.

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He is the founder and former conductor of the Iranian Percussion Ensemble for New Music, which won the first prize at Tehran University in 2006. Several scholarships followed, Deutscher Musikrat (2022), including Initial Scholarship of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (2021), Musikfonds (2020), Residency Scholarship of Künstlerhaus Lukas (2019) and Work stipends New Music and sound art Berlin (2018). In 2021, together with Elnaz Seyedi and Johannes Abel, he was awarded second prize at the International Composition Competition of the National Theater Mannheim. 

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He has worked in collaboration with numerous renowned ensembles, such as Ensemble Laboratorium, Ensemble Ascolta, Ensemble Mosaik, KNM-Berlin, Ma'alot Wind Quintet and Ensemble Unitedberlin. His music has been presented at several international festivals, such as Dastgah Festival Hannover, Bläserfestival Ma'alot, Bludenzer Tage Zeitgemäßer Musik, Cairo Contemporary Music Days, ACIMC Festival Paris, AFFEKT Festival Tallinn.

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Currently, Ehsan Khatibi lives as a freelance composer in Berlin, teaches music theory at Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf and granted a Ph.D. scholarship of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, is pursuing his PhD in composition with Beat Furrer at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz.

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