Andy Pape

Born 1955 in Hollywood, California, Andy Pape moved to Denmark in 1971. He studied at the Institute of Musicology, Copenhagen, and then went on to study composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music under Ib Nørholm. Andy Pape was chairman of the Dept. of Music at the Kunsthøjskole in Holbæk, Denmark 198 -1993. At present Pape devotes all of his time to composition. His music is inspired by many different musical sources such as avant-garde, performance theatre, jazz, and even rock music. Pape has written six operas to date and has two opera commissions, The Vapours of Love to be premiered in Århus in 2009, and Liberation to be premiered in Esbjerg in 2011. He has also written a number of “instrumental theatre” pieces. Pape has received the Danish Arts Council’s 3 year work grant in 1987 as well as 1993. He received Edition Wilhelm Hansen’s composer prize in 1994.

As regards "Harry Wallbanger": I first got to know him some time ago. It's hard to say precisely when, because Harry is a little elusive, with a positively shy disposition. He's not like his older brother Harvey, who is a professional alcoholic. Harry is a different type all together - and when you get to know him, he kind of grows on you. Little by little, you get the feeling that he's even become an integrated part of your life. I have to admit that there is a little bit of "Harry" in me, and maybe there is a little bit of Harry Wallbanger in all of us. As far as I know, Harry is not a very educated man. There is one poem, however, that he can recite by heart. It is written by Henry David Thoreau, and sounds as follows: Why, should we be / in such desperate haste / to succeed and in such/ desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, /Perhaps it is because /he hears a different drummer, /Let him step to the music he hears /However measured or far away.

Andy Pape has worked with instrumental theater during most of his career as a composer. His work with this genre has moved the focus from the bourgeois rebellion to what might be called ”The tyranny of absurd rituals”. Musically the weight has been shifted to a more ”traditionally sounding music”. This is something that older/traditional instrumental-theater avoided, as it represented the very bourgeois tradition that it was rebelling against. There is also often more of a story-line or plot in Pape’s instrumental-theater works, although this seems to be more of a facade – behind which the actual meaning of the piece resides.

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