NUJ Freelance Directory

Born and educated in Montreal (Canada), I graduated in economics and political science from McGill University and started working life at IBM. Interest in music throughout my childhood led me eventually to decide on a career in music. I returned to university and gained my qualifications as an opera singer, completing studies at the University of Munich. I then pursued a career lasting twenty years, as a soloist in principal roles on major stages (Munich, Venice, Zurich, Montreal, etc.) and on the concert stage for Columbia Artists, the New York-based management. Opportunities which I accepted in theatre, stage and road management during the 1980s led to an unexpected opportunity. BBC World Service asked me in 1990 to appear as the interval guest at the Last Night of the Proms. That was the moment I decided to pursue a career in journalism, having already been published periodically in Canada as well as the UK (Toronto Star, Financial Post, The Times, The Stage and Television Today, etc.). In the process I have been privileged to interview prominent people in public life and culture. These include Michael Gorbachov, Sir Edward Heath, Crown Prince Karl Habsburg of Austria, Crown Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, Henry Kissinger, Elisabeth Mann-Borgese, Ehud Olmert, Teddy Kollek, Lothar de Maiziere, Placido Domingo, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Andre Previn, Valerij Gergiev, Claudio Abbado, Wolfgang Wagner, Yo Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Daniel Barenboim, Kurt Masur, Gidon Kremer, Daniel Harding, Yevgenij Yevtushenko, and others. As a member of the Aviation Study Group, based at Oxford University (Linacre College), I am responsible for press and public relations. I am comfortable in written and spoken French, German, and Italian and am prepared to travel anywhere. Dagmar Sizer (Ms.) has often worked with me as photographer. Please refer to her indivdual entry in the NUJ Directory.