Multi-genre conductor André de Ridder remains open to all possibilities

It’s hard to pin down André de Ridder, and that’s exactly the way the German-born conductor likes it.

Although his international career is solidly anchored in the classical-music realm, his artistic interests are wide-ranging; de Ridder has worked with the British band These New Puritans, jazz musician Uri Caine and the electronic duo Mouse on Mars, and in 2013, he co-founded stargaze, a Berlin-based musical collective that blurs the boundaries between classical music, contemporary pop, electronica and what it calls “uncategorizable music.”

When de Ridder conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on Jan. 9-10 in live-to-picture performances of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” he will lead a program on the classical side; the film’s soundtrack consists of masterworks by Richard Strauss {Also sprach Zarathustra), Johann Strauss’ II (“The Blue Danube” waltz) and György Ligeti (Lux Aeterna).

As mentioned, much of de Ridder’s career has been focused on new-music festivals and musical start-ups like stargaze, which has a core of about a dozen musicians. “It’s a little bit, to talk about legendary American [chamber music] ensembles, between the Kronos Quartet and Alarm Will Sound or something,” he said. 

“Stargaze gives me the opportunity to try out things that maybe with an orchestral organization would take much, much longer to get going or would probably be too much outside the boundaries of what you’re expected to do,“ he said. ”So it’s a little bit of a utopian experiment and a way to break out of the constraints that we often find in the classical-music industry.”

From 2016 to 2021, de Ridder was the first non-Finnish artistic director of Musica Nova Helsinki, Finland’s largest contemporary-music festival. He describes the Finnish classical scene as having a “special vibrancy” because of its regular inclusion of new repertoire. “Contemporary music does not scare off audiences there, and people are very open and interested,” he said. The festival occurs every two years, with many of the Finland’s top musical organizations, such as the Helsinki Philharmonic, participating.

In 2017 and 2018, de Ritter served as artistic curator of the London-based Spitalfields Music Festival, which typically combines Renaissance and Baroque music with newly commissioned creations. In 2017, on the 450th anniversary of the birth of Monteverdi, the festival featured premieres by young British composers tied in some way to the milestone composer. The following year, the event included a presentation of Robert Schumann’s celebrated Dichterliebe (“A Poet’s Love”), a cycle of 16 art songs written in 1840. Sixteen singers performed then more or less simultaneously, each in a different historic house, and listeners could roam from one performance to the next and experience these masterpieces in a totally different way.

“So it’s staged things in an experimental way but using traditional repertoire — finding new audiences for that kind of repertoire and putting it in new contexts,“ he said. ”I’m looking for these opportunities to find ways of presenting classical repertoire to a wide audience and to find appreciation for music that otherwise would just be presented in Wigmore Hall in London or more traditional concert houses.”

In 2021, de Ridder was named general music director of Theater Freiberg, beginning in September 2022 (he will step down there after the 2026-2027 season). Previously, he served as principal conductor of the Sinfonia ViVA in Derby, England, from 2007 through 2012, and has concentrated on festivals and other initiatives, instead of conventional orchestral leadership posts. “I do have to say that I enjoy hopping between the more traditional concert repertoire with orchestras and then developing new projects,” he said.

De Ridder also is music director designate of both English National Opera and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, titles he will assume in September 2027. 

He remains open to all possibilities in the future. “I still think there is time for me,” he said. “I feel like I’m trying to push a lot of boundaries, and there will be a time, and it might not be too far off, when I will take on an organization that is ‘only,’ in the best sense of the word, an orchestra, that is interested in really building a new community for themselves. I’m moving toward that. And all these experiences that I have and the varied work I do, I think they are really contributing to my understanding of what an orchestra or opera house can mean us to nowadays.”

This is an updated version of an article that was previously published on Experience CSO.