Andy Pape (b. 1955) is American-born, but very Danish in his down-to-earth attitude to contemporary music. In 1990, with the film director Erik Clausen, he created the chamber opera Houdini den Store (The Great Houdini) which had unheard-of success with audiences as a touring, carnival-like show. Andy Pape was a pupil of Ib Nørholm. In his works he questions the post-war avant-garde, and provides the answer himself with inspiration from American minimalism, Neo-Classicism and the pure joy of playing and composing.