Music

My thoroughly musical education makes me an exceptionally qualified translator and writer in the world of classical music. Having played the piano since the age of six, I attended a choir school for five years, where I was taught piano and organ by Roger Judd. I also learned the cello, playing in two school orchestras throughout my education. My piano training continued under Ronald Smith, and later in Zurich under Zsuszanna Sirokay.

Attending a performance of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at the age of nine kindled my passion for opera. I have produced many translations for Zurich Opera House – starting in 1998 with the newly inaugurated Zurich Festival, continuing with marketing texts, synopses, and the annual Season Book, as well as producing English surtitles for approximately 140 opera productions. Other clients in the realm of opera include the Salzburg Festival, for which I translated highly demanding pieces such as Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and  Die Liebe der Danae as well as texts for the Salzburg Whitsun Festival under the artistic direction of Cecilia Bartoli. My sur-/subtitles have been seen in Salzburg, at the Semperoper Dresden and the Staatstheater Karlsruhe, as well as on Austrian television channel ORF and the Salzburg Festival’s 2015 DVD of Beethoven’s Fidelio.

I also work regularly for orchestras, and have translated more than 30 CD booklets for the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich – ranging from Mahler’s ten symphonies to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Christian Tetzlaff, from Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps to orchestral works by Messiaen. Among several projects for the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, I translated and edited the booklet for the ensemble’s 2020 Gramophone award-winning Rachmaninoff in Lucerne CD. Other clients in the world of music include the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Bern Symphony Orchestra and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra as well as pianist Teo Georghiu and harpsichordist Vital Julian Frey.