Anders Beyer. Photo: Ole Christiansen
Anders Beyer (b. 1958) began his professional career as a pianist. When he was in his teens, he was already performing as a soloist and accompanist, recording and touring. In the years1970 to 1985, he played the piano in a number of rock, jazz og easy listening combos.
Beyer studied music and philosophy at the University of Copenhagen and graduated in Musical Science in 1985, whereupon he worked as a lecturer at the university. While teaching at the university, Beyer also worked as music editor and critic at the newpaper Dagbladet Information from 1995 to 2004.
Classical music – from the early Renaissance composers to the Late Romantic masters – has been central to Anders Beyer’s professional life for decades. His knowledge of, and indeed his passion for, European musical culture has resulted in a large number of books, articles in international periodicals, and translations of e.g. German musicology. This professional knowledge has been instrumental for Beyer in establishing an international network within the world of Classical music.
Beyer has written books and articles in Nordic music, and he was editor of Dansk Musik Tidsskrift [Danish Music Journal] (1989-2007) and Nordic Sounds (1993-2006). For the Nordic Council of Ministers, Beyer has been the leader of a number of cultural projects in the Nordic countries and further abroad. He has initiated projects with music as a purveyor of peace on the Balkans in the 1990es, and he has worked with public diplomacy projects on Ground Zero in New York, among other places.
Having worked with Arts and Culture in the capacities of teacher, writer, translator and lecturer in a number of years, Beyer returned to the field of performance and became artistic director of Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen in 2006. During his tenure as musical director, the Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen has become one of the leading ensembles for contemporary music in Europe. In 2009, Beyer initiated the Athelas New Music Festival as an extension of the ensemble activities. In three years, the Athelas New Music Festival has become the country’s biggest festival for contemporary music, and one of the most prominent festivals in the North. The Festival is characterized by the inclusion of other art forms than music – in an ongoing exploration of the relationship between music and theatre, dance, film and performance.
In 2009, Beyer founded the Copenhagen Opera Festival to create musical experiences for a wide audience. In three years, Copenhagen Opera Festival has gained recognition as an important cultural attraction in Copenhagen with more than 25,000 visitors in 2011.
However varied Beyer’s cultural work has been, it has always been fuelled by his will to explore new ways of presenting music to audiences. The ground rule of winning over present day audiences, according to Beyer, is that you must have the ambiton of presenting the most sublime art, performed by the greatest performers. The key words are professionalism, commitment, dialogue, and challenge. Beyer has shown that collaboration across the divides of culture and genre, as well as the establishing of networks and alliances between institutions working within the same area can produce great and significant results.
Anders Beyer was artistic adviser for the Bergen Festival from 2006 to 2008.