Born into a well known Swiss musical family, Marc Andreae studied in his native town of Zurich before completing his professional development with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Franco Ferrara in Rome and Siena. In 1966 he won the conducting competition of Rudolf Kempe and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and 1968 the AIDEM competition in Florence.
In 1969, he was appointed music director of the Swiss-Italian Radio/TV Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1991. From 1990 until 1993 he was music- and artistic director of the Angelicum Orchestra in Milan. From 1989 - 2017 he has been permanent conductor of the concert serie SINFONIA of the Engadine Symphony Orchestra. The Orchestra nominates him honorary conductor. In 1999/2000 he was conductor in residence with the Symphony Orchestra Göttingen, and in 2001 he created the Orchestra dell’Insubria.
Andreae is a regular guest-conductor in West- and East European countries, Mexico and Japan. He leads such prestigious orchestras as the Munich– and Hamburg Philharmonic, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, NDR-Hamburg, WDR-Cologne, HR-Frankfurt, MDR-Leipzig, ORF-Vienna, the Bamberg-, Prague- and Vienna Symphonies, the National Orchestra of France, the Philharmonic of the French Radio in Paris, the National Symphony of Belgium, the Academy Santa Cecilia in Rome, RAI Turin, the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, the Basel Symphony Orchestra , the Swiss Romande in Geneva, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo.
In Opera Andreae specializes in German classicism and romanticism, but is also well versed in the belcanto of Rossini and Donizetti.
Marc Andreae has participated in famous festivals such as Salzburg, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Vlaanderen, Milan, Florence, Lucerne and Zurich, St.Petersburg, Ascona and Lugano. In 1996 he lead a tour through Italy with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and in 1998 with the Philharmonic of Halle. He has recorded over 50 DVDs, CDs and LPs, and was honoured by two Grand Prix du Disque and the Lp-Techo Distinction in Tokyo. As successor of Paul Hindemith he was designated in 1978 an honourable member of the Italian Anton Bruckner Society.
In 1999, the culture foundation of the UBS bank, at the suggestion of Ulrich Meyer-Schoellkopf, superintendent of the Berlin Philharmonic, conferred upon him the honorary prize for extraordinary merits as a conductor.
In 2005, the government of San Marino bestowed upon him the rank of “officer” of the knightly order of Saint Agate for his long and brilliant musical career.
He has premiered one hundred works by Feldmann, Globokar, J.Hoffman, Bamert, Beck, Glass, Glaus, Hoch, Holliger, Kelterborn, Lehmann, Moser, Moret, F.Müller, Vogel, Bussotti, Lombardi, Sciarrino, Urbanner, Wimberger…
Marc Andreae has discovered and edited symphonic works by Schumann, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Weber, Rossini and Donizettti (C.F.Peters) and an opera by Donizetti.