Simon Steen-Andersen

Simon Steen-Andersen (born 1976) is a Danish composer and installation artist.

He studied composition with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Mathias Spahlinger, Gabriel Valverde, and Bent Sørensen in Aarhus, Freiburg, Buenos Aires and Copenhagen from 1998 to 2006. He was the resident composer with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra between 2004-2005 and the Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen between 2006-2007. Since 2008 he has taught composition at the The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus. He currently lives in Berlin.

Well known for his original and uncompromising compositions, which often exist in a grey area between the accepted artforms, he has achieved international recognition over recent years. His works have performed and broadcast all over the world and he has received commissions from, among others, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Hilversum Radio Chamber Orchestra, and The French National Orchestra.

His output ranges from instrumental music, which typically employs a whole range of performance techniques and electronic elements, to video installations such as RunTime Error (2009). Other works of particular note include Rerendered (2004), written for pianist and two assistants; On And Off And To And Fro (2008), for soprano saxophone, vibraphone, double bass, and 3 players with megaphones; and Ouvertures (2010), for Chinese guzheng soloist, sampler, and symphony orchestra.

A work that typifies his playing with, and challenging of, existing conventions is Black Box Music (2012). The piece is scored for percussion solo, amplified box, 15 instruments and video, yet the conductor is the percussionist and carries out their duties with their hands in the amplified ‘black box’. The ensemble performs not on the stage but in three locations around the audience, being conducted by a video projection of the conductor that takes up the stage.

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