Since 1998, Dr. Knut Andreas is artistic director of the Collegium musicum Potsdam symphony orchestra, which under his direction has grown from a chamber orchestra to one of the largest-staffed orchestras in the state of Brandenburg and today has more than 75 musicians. In recent years, the orchestra has travelled to places such as Slovenia, where it performed Carl Orff's “Carmina Burana“ with two Slovenian choirs to audiences totalling 1,500, on the occasion of the German Unity Day. Together with the Collegium musicum Potsdam symphony orchestra, Knut Andreas has developed programmes for the cultural education of children, adolescents and families. One of the more recent projects is dedicated to the elderly living in nursing homes and not able to visit symphony concerts on their own. The “Classical Music on Weberplatz“ series, existing since 2011, annually attracts 1,500 to 2,000 listeners to the Babelsberg Weberplatz. Since 2011, he and the Collegium musicum Potsdam symphony orchestra have implemented the intercultural project “Brandenburg-Brazil“, which has brought numerous Brazilian soloists and conductors to Potsdam, among them singer Eliana Printes, trumpeter Paulo Ronqui and conductor Parcival Módolo.

Born in Potsdam, Knut Andreas began his musical education at the municipal music school “Johann Sebastian Bach“, where he studied violin, viola, bassoon and piano. After graduating in music education and German at Potsdam University, he continued his education at the Music and Theatre Conservatory “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ in Leipzig. Among his conducting mentors are Ronald Reuter, Werner Andreas Albert and Dorian Wilson. After completing his studies, he took a position as personal consultant and assistant of the general music director of the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic. In 2004, Knut Andreas helped found the international youth orchestra meeting NBJot “Baltic“, for which he worked as manager until 2008. His occupation with musicology, especially with the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, brought Knut Andreas to the Musicology Institute of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, where he completed his doctorate about the life and work of composer Paul Graener. He was active as manager of the transatlantic music conference “crosscurrents: American and European Music in Interaction, 1900-2000“, organized by Ludwig Maximilian University Munich in cooperation with Harvard University and the Paul Sacher foundation in Basle, the second part of which took place in Munich in May of 2009 with guests like Paul Hillier, Bruce Brubaker and Steve Reich. In Munich he also directed the choir and orchestra of the Musicology Institute. In 2012 he and the Collegium musicum Potsdam symphony orchestra were invited to the Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival to perform George Frederic Handel's oratorio “The Messiah“. He worked as an assistant with the choir of the Potsdam Winter Opera and the Kammerakademie Potsdam for performances of Handel's “Jephtha“ as part of the Potsdam Winter Opera and the Vienna Festival Weeks. Knut Andreas regularly performs as guest conductor with Brazilian orchestras, among them the Orquestra de Câmara OPUS, the Orquestra Sinfônica de Nova Lima, the Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal Campinas, the Orquestra Sinfônica da Unicamp and the Orquestra Sinfônica de Ribeirão Preto. Together with the Orquestra Sinfônica da Unicamp, Knut Andreas has devoted himself to contemporary music, premiering a trumpet concerto by Potsdam composer Gisbert Näther (trumpet: Paulo Ronqui) as well as a concerto for vibraphone and orchestra by Brazilian composer Luciana Nazario (vibraphone: Fernando Hashimoto) in 2014 and 2015. Since January of 2015, Knut Andreas is conductor of the youth symphony orchestra of George Frederic Handel High school in Berlin, with which he already undertook a concert trip to Albania. Since 2011, Knut Andreas is connected to Potsdam Technical College, where he has an assignment to teach orchestra management, music history, music aesthetics and music education. He has also given courses in musical education at the Universidade Mackenzie in São Paulo (Brazil). In 2014 and 2015, he was invited to teach master classes in the subject of conducting at Campinas University. As an author, Knut Andreas has been active for CD labels Audite and CPO for a number of years. In July of 2012, the Brazilian Academy for Literature and Art “Paranapuã“ (Rio de Janeiro) awarded Knut Andreas with its medal for cultural merits and thus acknowledged his achievements in connecting Brazilian and German artists and his efforts to make Brazilian music better known in Germany. In August of 2012, the state capital Potsdam honoured the Collegium musicum Potsdam symphony orchestra, under the direction of Knut Andreas, with a prize for its charitable work and cultural engagement. In 2015, Knut Andreas received funding by the Department of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg (InterStip) to implement a socio-cultural orchestra project with children and adolescents from a marginal environment in a district of the São Paulo metropolis.