Bernd Franke (composer)

His works are published by C. F. Peters, Breitkopf & Härtel, Faber Music London and Hofmeister Musikverlag, since 2002 exclusively by C. F. Peters.

Since the 1990s, Franke has worked intensively with the Goethe Institutes in New York, Toronto, Helsinki, Prague, Vilnius, Atlanta and Pittsburgh, among others. Since 2002 he has also been a member of the "Akademie der Künste" in Dresden and has been teaching at the University of Leipzig and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig since 1981. In 2003, Franke was appointed professor at the Alma mater lipsiensis (University of Leipzig) for master classes and lectures (among others at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, the Sibelius Academy Helsinki, the Pitea Festival Sweden or also the Music Academy Prague and the Music Academy Vilnius/Lithuania). 2008/09 Composer in Residence at ARS NOVA Copenhagen and Paul Hillier. 2009 Composer in Residence in Lithuania/Kurische Nehrung at the festival "Land of Disobedience".

Franke was born in Weißenfels/Saale. From 1975 to 1981, he studied musical composition in Leipzig at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig with Siegfried Thiele and conducting with Wolf-Dieter Hauschild. As a founder, he presided over the "Junge Musik" group in Leipzig from 1980 to 1983. From 1981 to 1985 he was a master student at the Akademie der Künste der DDR in Berlin and in 1988 a participant in the "Composer Workshop of the Gaudeamus Foundation Amsterdam", where he worked with Ton de Leeuw and Chu Wen Chung, among others. Later, in 1989, Franke was able to deepen his studies at the "Leonard Bernstein Fellowship of the Tanglewood Music Center". There he worked not only with Leonard Bernstein, but also with composer Lukas Foss, violinist Louis Krasner and composer and conductor Oliver Knussen. As an acclaimed composer, various lecture and concert tours in 1993, 1994 and 1996 took him to Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Carrollton, Jacksonville and Minneapolis. At the invitation of Hans Werner Henze, Franke was a jury member of the "Munich Biennale for New Music Theatre in 1994. For two years (1996–1998), he was also artistic director of the series "New Music in the Beck Gallery" Leipzig/Düsseldorf. The year 1998 is associated with the founding of the "Ensemble SOLO XFACH", so important for Bernd Franke, which has since aimed at the authentic dissemination of the works of Franke's cycle "SOLO XFACH", begun in 1988.

Bernd Franke (born 14 January 1959) is a German composer.