Inside the Mind of a Composer: Andrew Burke

Burke walked into Houston Hall wearing an outfit straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad, and met me with a firm handshake. I tried to reconcile the image of the great composer who was a finalist in Kaleidoscope Orchestra’s Call for Scores and the second-place winner of the prestigious Prix d’Ete Competition at the Peabody Institute with the man I stood before. Meeting Andrew for the first time was encountering structure, class, and composure. Even with an extensive background and experience in performance and musical composition, he remained ever so humble.

Andrew Burke is a classical composer, multimedia artist, and a PhD student studying Music Composition at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation, In Open Air, is a one-act chamber opera that will be performed in Philadelphia this April. He started writing music in high school and performed with his former jazz/indie band, The Da Vincis, in Mississippi under Olympic Records label. In 2009, they released their debut album, “See You Tonight,” featuring eight jazz-filled, catchy songs. The band was even acknowledged and praised by the notable Robert Christgau for delivering a “mastery of the three-minute pop song.”

After graduating from Haverford College in 2014, Burke worked in political communications for 4 years. During this time, his underlying passion for music inspired him to pursue a Master’s in Music Composition at The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, under the three-time Grammy Award nominee Christopher Cerrone and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts. 

He has gone on to win numerous other awards, including the Macht Orchestral Composition Competition, the University of Pennsylvania’s David Halstead Music Prize, the DeLillo Composition Competition, and Score Follower. As a multimedia artist, he has held countless exhibitions, including his three-screen sound-and-visual-art performance “Vanishing Point” from his time as an artist-in-residence at the Merriweather District in 2021. There, he also completed his first feature-length film score for Brutal Season (1091 Pictures).  

Even with a tasking schedule, Burke continues to create bedroom pop music under the pseudonym, Danke Shane, with Tape Dad Records. He says that music has the “ability to address and elucidate complex issues, providing spaces and experiences for the listener to reflect.”

FRONTRUNNER Magazine is proud to present our conversation with Andrew Burke.

In High School, you had a band called The Da Vincis, which even earned praise from the legendary Robert Christgau. What was that time like?

The shout-out was kind of surprising. Christgau used to publish these consumer guides with really short blurbs. This was back when people went to music journalists and critics for guidance as consumers. My friends and I, back in Mississippi, Gavin Field and Peyton Randolph, got signed by Olympic records owned by this legendary 22-year-old, Misha Hercules. Misha produced our album and is still one of my very good friends. Everyone was so young, and there was little supervision. It was exciting and creatively empowering because we did what we wanted to, and found a much larger, “community” audience.

Beyond our immediate circles, the internet helped our music spread. We got to share what we were doing, just three high school students enjoying our art. Although we never became a touring act, we performed a lot in cafes, and it was mostly kept within the “neighborhood.”

As creatives, we know how the public can be when it comes to discouraging us from pursuing the Arts. Were there any roadblocks along the way? When did you first realize that music was going to be your life’s commitment?

I think, for me, it was a very slow process of realizing and negotiating my doubts. It didn’t feel like a real possibility in high school and college. I thought, “This isn’t a real job,” and even got the advice, “If you can do something else, you should do something else.” That put the wrong idea in my mind, because I felt like there were other things I would be good at, and I thought, perhaps, I should explore those options. What pushed me to think, “I should try this as a career,” was my eagerness to dedicate most of my working time to it. 

One of his compositions on YouTube, performed by the Daedalus Quartet, called “That Is To Say”

My parents were actually very enthusiastic about me going into music. My dad is a lawyer, and for him, the idea of one of my siblings and me going into the arts was great. He would say, “Pursue what you want to do.” Even after graduating from college, something that inspired me was seeing all my friends pursue careers in the Arts. I thought we were all going to stop doing “Artsy” things. But they continued. I had a friend who started a production company, some of whom worked in the visual arts, and another friend who became a professional dancer. And I thought, “My peers are actually doing everything I want to do, so why the heck aren’t I?” That was a kick in the ass. 

Which one of your pieces/compositions was the most exciting to work on? And which would you say is the least understood?

I feel like there are certain pieces that are turning points when you’re developing as a composer. Sometimes, you have these pieces that send you in a new direction. They might not even necessarily be your best works. They’re just kind of like a big leap forward in your stylistic progression. 

One piece that was like a pretty big moment was this piece I wrote called Juniper. I performed it during an artist residency in Maryland, where I was given free rein to do whatever I wanted. And I came up with this piece, performed and staged in an immersive way, where the audience was surrounded by the musicians. I don’t know, there’s just something about that piece…I wrote it after the pandemic, around the time when the vaccines got out, and there was almost a joyful moment around the world. There was so much time during the pandemic for introspection.

Your work is deeply philosophical, and you previously said that music is a way to “navigate complex issues” and “reflect.” What are some beliefs and philosophical concepts you try to reveal in your work?

I think to some extent, making music is like making any piece of art—for someone to engage with and map their feelings onto. For me, I tend to think about that interpretative process  more actively. As musicians, I would say there’s a responsibility to do that. And I hope that other musicians are out there thinking about these things. 

It’s a very personal thing. You’re sort of working through what’s going on in your life or something that’s troubling you. Something that’s really important to me lately is the idea and theme of memory. I’m working on my dissertation now and will defend it in April. The libretto was written by my old bandmate Gavin Fields. It works through a lot of perception, memory, and even anxieties surrounding technological upheaval. 

In music, you want your ideas to come from a really sincere place, and you want them to have a lot of personal significance to you.

How much of your work would you say is improvisation, and how much is planned?

This is a big topic within the world of composers. I don’t incorporate improvisation into my pieces, per se, the way one of my teachers, Tyshawn Sorey, has a deep engagement with improvisation and what he calls “spontaneous composition.” My compositional process does engage with improvisation-adjacent practices. There’s this composer named Linda Catlin Smith who said something that really inspired me about wanting to work with a “deliberate disorientation” and dwell in the space of uncertainty. To be clear, that isn’t the same thing as improvisation. However, I guess I bring that up because I try to not get too comfortable. 

That feeling of being right at the edge of what you’re capable of doing or attempting something that may be beyond your reach is an important feeling for me.

What instruments do you play?

I play the piano; it’s my main instrument and the one I’ve studied the longest. Additionally, I sing, and I taught myself to play the guitar.

Did you also self-teach music theory?

No, I had some great teachers instead, who opened up a whole world of composition to me with music theory. In the world of classical music, there’s a strong awareness of pedigree. When you learn these theories, you have to internalize them and, to some extent, even forget about them. If you feel like you’re just following the rules you learned in college, there’s no sense of excitement or surprise to it. Everyone ultimately has to find their own way into it, even if we do learn most of its structure from our teachers.

During your Master’s, you studied under the legendary 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner, Kevin Puts, and three-time Grammy nominee, Christopher Cerrone. We can imagine how starstruck you must have been. What was that experience like?

I went to see Kevin Puts’ opera, “The Hours,” at the MET. I just remember walking into the building and thinking, “Kevin is extremely brave.” I’d be so scared taking on a huge project like that. I spent a lot of time working with him on a film score for Brutal Season. His background in opera gave him such an interesting perspective on narrative, characters, and pacing. 

Being in such close proximity to these music legends—my teachers—Kevin, Tyshawn, Christopher, and Natacha Diels, and her amazing “Beautiful Trouble” project with the Jack Quartet—lit a fire in me to go out and reach for the same stars they did.  

I’ve been very lucky because all the teachers I’ve ever had were kind—the opposite of the image of the aggressive and overbearing music teacher, Terence Fletcher, in the movie, Whiplash (we laugh). In my experience, that’s a bit of a caricature. But I would say there are some corners of the classical music world with similarly intense personalities, extremely demanding and quite frightening to be around.

Your artistic pseudonym, Danke Shane, focuses on a very different genre than your primary focus: Bedroom pop. What was the inspiration behind the creation of the name, and what has your experience been as a more contemporary artist?

“Danke Shane” is a phonetic spelling of the German phrase Dankeschön, which translates to “thank you very much” or “thank you a lot.” It’s from one of my favorite movies growing up, called “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986), dir. John Hughes. There’s this random song called Dankeschön sung by Wayne Newton and performed in the movie by Matthew Broderick. These characters sing in and around this floating parade while Wayne lip syncs Dankeschön. It’s just a funny, creative decision—like why is this popular high school student who is supposed to be super cool performing this cheesy song from the 1950s? It’s totally anachronistic! Its strangeness appealed to me, and it was a creative decision I made that seemed kind of funny and cool.

When I think back to when I was first getting serious about music in the more formal, classical world—playing Ravel and Prokofiev, I had an itch that wasn’t getting scratched—the world of making music with my friends, like when I was back in my high school band and putting on shows at coffee shops. These two worlds were separated. So, “Danke, Shane” is really my way of filling that gap. Sometimes, I have these ideas for songs I really want to act on, but can’t really achieve them in the classical context.

With your vast experience in the classical music industry, what advice do you have for other future composers who are just starting out?

Your peers are not your competitors. Instead, think of them like collaborators. I know the proliferation of competitions in our field would lead you to believe otherwise, but making music is not a sport. Brian Eno espouses this idea of “scenius” that I really get behind. At the end of the day, your fellow artists are the very people who can teach and inspire you. Out of this sort of collective intelligence, great things emerge. So, go to shows, say hi, ask questions, and get excited.