Mark Andre

Mark Andre reaches with such intensity for a stillness that almost bursts your eardrums. Berliner Zeitung

Mark Andre, born in Paris in 1964, creates musical-existential experiences for the listener characterised by subtle, minutely worked-out processes of transformation. Central to his work is the question of disappearance, which shapes his approach to sound, form, and subject. The practicing Protestant is a sensitive explorer of sound, both in his delicate and concentrated chamber works as well as in his orchestral and music theatre pieces.

After his studies in France, including those at the Paris Conservatory with Claude Ballif and Gérard Grisey, Mark Andre found a new musical home in Germany. He describes his encounter with the music of Helmut Lachenmann, whose piano concerto score Ausklang he happened to stumble across, as having been a revelation. He subsequently went through extensive composition studies with Lachenmann in Stuttgart and studied musical electronics with André Richard at the experimental studio of Southwest German Radio, in the meantime shifting the focus of his life from France to Germany. Here, he soon received grants and prizes, such as the Kranichsteiner Music Prize at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music (1996), first prize at the Stuttgart International Composers Competition (1997), and the composition prize from Frankfurt Opera (2001). Since 1998 he has taught regularly at the Darmstadt Summer Courses. In 2002 he received the Advancement Award from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, and in 2005 he travelled to Berlin as a participant of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programme, where he has lived ever since.

Particular interest was aroused by the 2004 premiere of Mark Andre’s tripartite music theatre work …22, 13… at the Munich Biennale. This work’s title refers to a passage in the Apocalypse of St John. His orchestral triptych …auf…, which he completed in 2007, similarly references religious themes. Here, Mark Andre explored aspects of transition as relates to Christ’s Resurrection. Mark Andre has a soft spot for German prepositions, grammatical elements with the function of transition, as illustrated in numerous other work titles such as those of the chamber music works written between 2001 and 2005: …durch…, …zu…, …in…, and …als…. Mark Andre's first opera, wunderzaichen, under Sylvain Cambreling’s baton, became a highlight of the 2013/14 Stuttgart Opera season and was reprised there in 2018 in a revised version.

One of Mark Andre’s most important works of the last decade is the clarinet concerto über written for Jörg Widmann and the SWR Symphony Orchestra, which won the Orchestral Prize at the Donaueschingen Festival. The violin concerto an, last performed in 2023 by Ilya Gringolts and the Vienna RSO as an Austrian premiere, had been premiered by Carolin Widmann in 2016 at the Acht Brücken festival in Cologne, followed by the work …hin…for harp and chamber orchestra in 2018. Another significant work of recent years is the Riss trilogy for ensemble, with individual parts written for the Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble Musikfabrik and the Ensemble intercontemporain. His work for organ iv15 himmelfahrt was performed for the first time in October 2018 in Munich in the version for electronic stop action, before being performed with mechanical stop action in Bad Frankenhausen in 2019. In 2018/19 he was also commissioned by the Berlin Scharoun Ensemble to write Drei Stücke für Ensemble, which were performed at the Berlin Philharmonie and the Elbphilharmonie. Also in 2019, iv 17 for soprano and piano was premiered at the Lucerne Festival. wohin, a work for harp and ensemble, was premiered by the Ensemble intercontemporain at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2021 and performed again at the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin in 2022. At the Musikfest Berlin in 2021, the 40-minute double bass solo piece iv 18 "Sie fürchteten sich nämlich" was on the programme, which will soon also be released on CD. The world premiere, expertly performed by Frank Reinecke, was part of a two-part concert evening with Pierre-Laurent Aimard featuring five piano works by Mark Andre. In May 2022, the rwh cycle was heard with five Hanoverian choirs and the Ensemble Modern at the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen and subsequently at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, followed by rwh2 with the Gaechinger Cantorey and the ensemble ascolta at the Musikfest Stuttgart. The cycle rwh 1-4 was performed again this season at the Wien Modern Festival in St Stephen's Cathedral with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Singakademie under Roland Kluttig.

Mark Andre started the past season with the premiere of his Sieben Stücke für Streichquartett by the Kuss Quartet at the Elbphilharmonie. At the Rainy Days festival at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, Brad Lubman conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg with the world premiere of Vier Echographien for Orchestra. The German premiere followed in the current season: the SWR Symphony Orchestra under Teodor Currentzis performed the 4th Echographie in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Freiburg and Berlin, and the entire cycle of the Vier Echographien was performed in Cologne with the Gürzenich Orchestra under François-Xavier Roth. The orchestral work Im Entschwinden was launched in 2023 by the Orchestre de Paris under the direction of Klaus Mäkelä at the Musikverein Wien, where Mark Andre was featured as a focus artist in numerous concerts; the German premiere followed at the Elbphilharmonie. The WDR Symphony Orchestra under Peter Rundel has also performed the work in Cologne and Essen, as has the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under André de Ridder as part of the Berlin Ultraschall Festival 2024. Dasein 1 for ensemble and electronics was premiered with the Ensemble intercontemporain at the IRCAM festival ManiFeste at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2023; the piece marks the beginning of a new ensemble triptych. In August 2023, the Four Pieces for piano were premiered in Korea by Jong Hwa Park as part of a series of concerts to mark the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Germany and Korea.

Mark Andre is a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, Saxon Academy of the Arts, and the Bavarian Academy of the Arts, and was honoured with the order of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2011. In 2012 he was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He teaches composition at the Academy of Music in Dresden.

2023/24 season

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