Marc André was born in Paris on 10 May 1964. (He was known by his birth name until 2007, when he officially changed the spelling to Mark Andre.) He attended the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP) from 1987 to 1993, where he studied composition, counterpoint, music theory, analysis, and musicology, working with Claude Ballif and Gérard Grisey, among others. He graduated with highest honors (premier prix). After studying at the École normale supérieure (Paris) and the Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance (Tours), he received a masters degree in 1994, with a thesis on Le Compossible musical de l’Ars subtilior under the direction of Philippe Vendrix and Olivier Boulnois, an expert on Duns Scotus. With a Lavoisier Scholarship from the French Foreign Ministry, Andre then attended the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, where, from 1993 to 1996, he worked with Helmut Lachenmann, receiving an advanced degree in composition (Grosses Kompositionsexamen). Lachenmann publicly praised his student in 2006.

He received fellowships from the Schloss Solitude Academy in Stuttgart in 1995 and 1996. In 1996, he was awarded a scholarship from the German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD) and a Villa Medicis hors les murs grant for a residency in Germany. That same year, he took masterclasses with Wolfgang Rihm and won the Kranichstein Music Prize during the Darmstadt Summer Course for un-fini I for harp (1995) and le loin et le profond (1994-1995) for ensemble. He also received first prize in the Blaue Brücke Berlin-Dresden for Fatal for ensemble (1995). From 1997-1998 he studied electronic music with André Richard at the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation at the SWR (Freiburg), winning first prize at the Stuttgart International Composers’ Competition for Le trou noir univers for orchestra, vocalists, and live electronics (1992-1993). He was awarded a residency by SWR and the City of Baden-Baden for the year 1997-1998, and taught composition at the Darmstadt Summer Course in 1998 (as well as in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2016). In 1997, he also began teaching counterpoint and orchestration at the Conservatoire National de Région in Strasbourg and the Frankfurt Musikhochschule.

Andre was awarded a residency at the Villa Medicis in Rome from 1998 to 2000, and in 2001 received the Internationaler Kompositionspreis from the Frankfurt Opera for …das O…, Part 1 of …22,13…, which was premiered by Ensemble Modern under Johannes Debus. In 2002, he received the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Förderpreis. …22,13…, Musiktheater-Passion (1999-2004), composed for the Munich Biennale and the Mainz City Theatre, premiered in Munich on 20 May 2004, with Peter Hirsch as musical director and Georges Delnon as stage director. It was then performed in Munich, Mainz, and at the Festival d’Automne at the Opéra Bastille, in Paris.

Andre was invited to take part in the DAAD Artist Program in Berlin in 2005. His music continued winning prizes, with the Christoph and Stefan Kaske Composition Prize in 2006; the Giga Hertz Production Prize for electronic music (Karlsruhe) in 2007; and the Orchestral prize from the Donaueschingen Festival for the third part of the …auf… triptych, premiered by the SWR Sinfonieorchester of Baden-Baden and Freiburg, directed by Sylvain Cambreling. In 2008, he received the Berlin Art Prize Förderpreis for Music from the Berlin Academy of Arts and in 2012, the Gerhart and Renate Baum Foundation Composition Prize. The entire …auf… triptych was premiered by the Berliner Philharmoniker on 28 March 2009. That same year, Andre was named to the Berlin Academy of Arts and appointed Professor of Composition at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. Since 2010, he has also been a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts and Music, and, since 2012, an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.

In 2010, Andre taught composition at the Académie of the Festival d’Aix, in France, and was a composer-in-residence at the Takefu International Music festival in Japan. In 2012, he served as composer-in-residence at the Salzburg Mozartwoche, and in 2012-2013, was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study) in Berlin. wunderzaichen, his “opera in four situations” (2011-2013) with a libretto by Patrick Hahn, was premiered at the Stuttgart Opera on 2 March 2014, with Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito as stage directors and Sylvain Cambreling as musical director. In 2015 he received the Orchesterpreis of the SWR Orchestra at the Donaueschinger Musiktage for über. That same year he was a fellow at the Villa Tarabya in Istanbul and the following year at the Villa Concordia in Bamberg. In 2017 he taught composition at the Impuls Festival in Graz and at the Fondation Royaumont. He also received the Art and Culture Prize of the German Bishops’ Conference and in 2021 the Music Award of the Gruppo Aperto Musica Oggi (GAMO) in Florence.

Andre was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2011. He makes his home in Berlin.