A Danish composer born April 24, 1976 in Odder (Denmark).
Simon Steen-Andersen studied the classical guitar and piano before joining rock groups and tackling synthesised sounds with his personal computer. He then decided to devote himself to composition and trained between 1998 and 2006 with Karl Aage Rasmussen in Aarhus (Denmark), Mathias Spahlinger in Fribourg, Gabriel Valverde in Buenos Aires and Bent Sorensen in Copenhagen.
Steen-Andersen explores the territories of instrumental music, electronics, video, stage direction, performance and sound installation. He composes as much for solo instrument as for orchestra. He opens up a ‘micro-world’, requiring a pianissimo play on acoustic instruments amplified to an extreme, often in combination with samplers, videos, everyday objects or ad hoc constructions: On And Off And To And Fro for three musicians and three megaphones (first performed at the Internationalen Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, 2008); History of my instrument for harp, video and light (first performed by Sunniva Rødland Wettre in Vancouver, 2011); Study for string instrument #3 for cello and video (first performed by Tanja Orning in Oslo, 2011); Black box music for percussion solo, amplified box, 15 musicians and video (first performed by Håkon Stene and the Oslo Sinfonietta in Darmstadt, 2012); Piano concerto for piano, orchestra, video and light (first performed by Nicolas Hodges and the Orchestra of the SWR conducted by François-Xavier Roth, Donaueschinger Musiktage, 2014); Asthma for accordion and video (first performed by Andreas Borregaard at the festival November Music in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, 2017).
Working closely with his performers, he has developed a special approach to performance, a concept of visual music as well as of choreographies for instruments and musicians. Simon Steen-Andersen has won many prizes, including the Mauricio Kagel Music Prize and Ernst von Siemens Composers' Prize in 2017. Also a regular guest teacher (Oslo, Darmstadt, Berlin…), he teaches composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark.
