Biography
An aspiring conductor, Andre recently completed a MSt in Music (Musicology) at Oxford. He had previously studied Music and Philosophy at Columbia University, where he also served as Artistic Director of the Columbia Bach Society. His musicological research concerns the music of Hans Gál, a Viennese-Jewish (and later British émigré) composer whose successful career in interwar Germany was upended by anti-Semitic violence under Nazism. As a conductor, Andre sees it as his mission to bring back the music of persecuted or silenced composers like Gál into the repertory, and hopes to inspire audiences with not only the beauty of classical music, but the stories found therein.
In masterclasses, Andre has studied under conductors such as Jorma Panula, Sian Edwards, Simon Carrington, Larry Rachleff, and Yip Wing-sie, and conducted orchestras like the MÁV Symphony (Budapest), Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Lviv National Philharmonic, and Kecskemét Symphony Orchestra. In the summer of 2023, he was also selected as one of 16 student conductors to participate in the Järvi Academy of the Pärnu Music Festival, studying with Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Krystian Järvi, and Leonid Grin. In the autumn of 2024, Andre will begin pursuing a master's in orchestral conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester, under the tutelage of Mark Heron, Clark Rundell, and David Hill.