ANDRAS ELLENDERSEN
Andras Jucksch Ellendersen (born 1996) is a Brazilian-Faroese composer and multi-instrumentalist. His torn identity between North and South and his parallel formation as a Cultural Anthropologist has helped him carve out a musical voice which reflects upon human identity in the diversity of its resonant expression.
Andras has had pieces premiered in Brazil, the Faroe Islands, Denmark, Poland and Germany. His work has been performed by artists such as the Camerata Antiqua de Curitiba (BR), Kwartludium (PL) and Det Fynske Kammerkor (DK). In 2023, he has been a prize winner at the KORAL23 composition contest (Odense, Denmark) for his choral piece Den blinde, røde orm, based upon the poem Mod nat, by William Heinesen.
As a member of the Gregorian Chant ensemble Cantus Libere in 2018-19, Andras has studied Latin phonetics, Gregorian palaeography and semiology with Brazilian scholar Paulo Valente. He has had private piano education with Davi Sartori and Olga Kiun and studied composition with Samuel Andreyev, Harry Crowl and Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen. In 2024, he underwent a mentorship with Danish-American composer Lil Lacy focused upon project leadership and career management in the music world.
He has written music since his teenage years, having released his first album of piano compositions (Ut) in 2011 and won a worldwide arrangement contest promoted by Atlanta-based heavy metal band Mastodon, reaching over 70,000 views with his rendition on YouTube. His creative work throughout the 2010s has also given birth to an EP (Ritoli, 2013) and Shogyoumujou (2016), a full-length album with prog rock duo Da Zai where he teams with Japanese guitarist Tatsuro Murakami.
Apart from his formal output, Andras has a separate output of progressive rock and pop music under the pen name Andras Atlason. He released his first full-length rock solo album, Atlantis (TUTL Records), in 2022, followed by concerts in Brazil and in Europe. In 2023 and 2024, two new singles, Við ótta og bivan and Uníssono, were released.
He is the initiator and ongoing leader of EKKÓ – Kwartludium Performs Faroese New Music, a project coordinating international ensemble collaboration and commissions from five Faroese composers.
Besides composing, Andras Ellendersen works as a music producer, arranger, private educator, and soloist, and is currently undergoing both a mentorship with the Faroese composer Sunleif Rasmussen and a Master’s Degree in Music Composition from the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil).