This composer was totally unknown to me. I no I shood haf done spelt it rite, especially since I assume Andrea is femail and we all needs to moore "gender sensitive" deese dayz. I may have been thinkin Taboolie.
Mistake - it's the Italian equivalent of Andrew. I remember a meeting where a speaker referred to an Italian friend of mine called Andrea as "she", whereupon he stood up (he was in the audience), jabbed his finger at his chin, and called out, "I have a beard!".
If it was confusing others, I would have changed my first name to remove all doubts..but I am not famous..
It is always unwise to add a pinch of salt to an already tasty dish, but let me try it all the same.
Italians have a point here. After all, Andrew, Andrea, André, Andris and all this kind of names probably come from "andros", ancient Greek word for man (as opposed to woman, while "anthropos" is the human being in general).
However, the safest is to remember that there are some national variants here. So, as a rule:
Andrea from Italy is a man,
Andrea from Hungary is a woman,
Andreea from Romania is a woamn (mind the double "e"),
André from France is a man, and Andrée a woman,
Elfrida Andree from Sweden was a woman, but then, Andree was her surname ;D