He began regular correspondence with Stockhausen, Nono, Ligeti and Henze in the mid-80s, visiting Lutoslawski in Warsaw too. In 1987 he was awarded the Composition prize at the 9th Boswil International Composition Seminar (Künstlerhaus Boswil Foundation, Switzerland) and the Kucyna International Composition Prize, Boston (USA). His association with the Künstlerhaus Boswil Foundation continued in the form of a number of long-term work residencies.
In 1988 he was involved in composer workshops at the Gaudeamus Foundation Amsterdam working with Ton de Leeuw and Chu Wen Chung among others, and in the same year he began work on his cycle half-way house - SOLO XFACH (for Joseph Beuys) with Solo 3fach. The piece was premiered that year by the Kölner Horntrio at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt.
He received the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship from the Tangelwood Music Center, USA in 1989 and studied with Bernstein, Lukas Foss, Louis Krasner and Oliver Knussen, amongst others.
His first meeting with Hans Werner Henze, who was to become his mentor in the early 90s, came at the world premiere of the West-Eastern German Songbook at the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Franke’s Wann wird Friede sein, based on a text by Karl Vollmoeller, was included in the project. He continued to exchange letters with Henze and was to meet him regularly in Berlin, Munich, London and San Marino.
In 1993 he received study grants and delivered a series of lectures in the USA, including in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Carrollton and Minneapolis. In 1994 Henze invited Franke to sit on the jury at the Munich Biennale for New Music Theater. Between 1996 and 1998 he was Artistic Director of the ‘New Music at the Beck Galerie’ (Leipzig/Düsseldorf) series and in 1998 founded Ensemble SOLO XFACH with the aim of promoting authentic performances of the cycle of the same name. Since 1998 he has undertaken a number of long-term study trips and working stays in Southeast Asia and India.
The first productions of SOLO XFACH came in 2000: playback tapes were produced in Berlin Technical University’s electronic studio, parts of the SOLO XFACH cycle were produced at Hessian Radio Frankfurt with Ensemble SOLO XFACH and a full-length concert featuring SOLO XFACH (for Joseph Beuys) and a video installation by Peter Kees was staged in the German Pavillion at the Hanover EXPO.
In 2001 Franke began work on his CUT cycle; CUT I-III was given its world premiere by Ensemble Modern. 2002 marked the beginning of Franke’s association with C.F. Peters and since then his works have been exclusively published by the company. 2002 also saw the world premieres of several of his works in New York, Pittsburgh, Saarbrücken and Leipzig, and lecture tours, made possible with the support of the Goethe Institute, in the USA and Canada (New York, Pittsburgh, Toronto/Winnipeg). Franke became a member of the ‘Sächsische Akademie der Künste’, Dresden, in the same year.
In 2003 he was named Composer of the Year at the Kaustinen Festival in Finland. He began work on the cycle LINES in 2004 and on IN BETWEEN in 2005. IN BETWEEN (I) was premiered in Tokyo. Franke was Composer in Residence with vocal ensemble ARS NOVA Copenhagen, led by Paul Hillier, from 2008 to 2009 and in 2009 held the same position at the ‘Land of the Disobedient’ Festival in Lithuania.
