[1][5] From 1981 to 1985 he was a master student at the Akademie der Künste der DDR in Berlin[5] and in 1988 a participant in the "Composer Workshop of the Gaudeamus Foundation Amsterdam", where he worked with Ton de Leeuw and Chu Wen Chung, among others.
Later, in 1989, Franke was able to deepen his studies at the "Leonard Bernstein Fellowship of the Tanglewood Music Center".
[1][5] As an acclaimed composer, various lecture and concert tours in 1993, 1994 and 1996 took him to Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Carrollton, Jacksonville and Minneapolis.
At the invitation of Hans Werner Henze, Franke was a jury member of the "Munich Biennale for New Music Theatre in 1994.
[1] Since the 1990s, Franke has worked intensively with the Goethe Institutes in New York, Toronto, Helsinki, Prague, Vilnius, Atlanta and Pittsburgh, among others.