BIo

So what’s in my DNA?

Taken literally, I’m a fusion of my Dad’s Croatian and my Mom’s German genes. I was born and raised in the US, mostly in White Plains, NY.

I’d say my ancestry translates nicely into my composing style:

On the one hand, I’m fueled by a Mediterranean passion, driving me to seek out emotional impact wherever it may hide.

On the other hand, I usually channel this passion into clear and well thought-out structures, not shying away from complexity, but only to keep things interesting and never to obscure the central motifs of my pieces.

This feeds into what I feel makes great music: The right balance between the familiar and the new, between groove and surprise. One without the other would be either boring or confusing.

After White Plains, I finished school in Germany, where we had moved when my grandmother fell ill and needed our support. I was torn between attending a music conservatory or studying to satisfy the oh-so-many questions I had about life. The latter won out first, and I earned a degree in psychology (since everything we learn about life and ourselves is basically constructed in that ball of meat up in our heads).

My multicultural upbringing steered me towards a career as an intercultural communication trainer and coach, and for 15 years I gave seminars on a wide array of topics in the fields of communication, leadership and creativity.

Though I tried hard to keep my musical ambitions sated with various projects on the side, frequent business travels set limits to what I was able to do musically. So after 15 years I felt I was back at that crossroads after high school. Only this time, after having extensively traveled one route, I was very clear on which road to take next…