André Richard
André Richard (born 18 April 1944) is a Swiss composer and conductor. Life. Born in Bern, Richard studied singing, music theory and music composition first at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève and later at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough. This was followed by studies in live electronic music with Hans Peter Haller at the Freiburg and at the IRCAM in Paris. In the 1980s, he worked closely with Luigi Nono on performances of "Prometeo", "Caminantes...", "Ayacucho" and other works by the composer. In 1983, on the occasion of a performance of  Luigi Nono's work "The Breathing Clarity", he founded, together with Arturo Tamayo, the Freiburg Soloists' Choir, of which he has been the director since 1984. He made his conducting debut at the Warsaw Autumn in 1988 with the Polish premiere of Nono's "Diario Polacco no 2, Quando stanno morendo". From December 1989 to December 2005, he was director of the experimental studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of the Südwestrundfunk. With his studio, he has appeared internationally in numerous realisations of new works with integrated live-electronic means as interpreter and conductor.