André de Ridder

Work

De Ridder studied conducting with Leopold Hager at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna and with Sir Colin Davis at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The conductor is equally engaged in different genres of music, be it pop, electronic music or opera, ancient music or contemporary compositions. He performs regularly at leading festivals such as the BBC Promenade Concerts or the Edinburgh International Festival, the Holland Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Manchester International Festival or at the Sydney Festival.

His experiential work includes cooperations with the British band These New Puritans, with jazz musician Uri Caine and composers Nico Muhly and Owen Pallett. There is also a close relation with Cologne-based MusikFabrik and with the electronic duo Mouse on Mars as well as collaboration with Efterklang. In 2012, de Ridder founded stargaze, a musical collective devoted to crossing borders between classical, pop, folk, electronic and 'uncategorizable' music. Together with this group he has performed in London, Manchester, Paris, Amsterdam, New York and Sydney, and has launched its own spring festival in Berlin.

In the field of opera, de Ridder has conducted among others works by Mozart, Leoš Janáček and Hans Werner Henze. He conducted several world premieres:

In addition he conducts opera performances at the Komische Oper Berlin, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam.

From 2007 to 2012, de Ridder was the Principal Conductor of the Sinfonia ViVA based in Derby, UK. Furthermore, he has been invited by Britten Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta and Philharmonia Orchestra, by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and several other BBC orchestras, by the Orchestre de Paris, the Copenhagen Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 he achieved an enormous success in Australia, conducting the sound track of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Sydney Opera House and then again at the Symphony in the Domain and at the Adelaide Festival.

Quote

De Ridder conducted with discerning pace and gave the music space to breathe. [...] Energy, taste and a discriminating ear for balance and timbre are hallmarks of his conducting.

Discography (selection)