Born in Düsseldorf in 1938. Studied musicology, philosophy and art history in Cologne, Florence and Vienna. 1963 PhD with a thesis on Josef Matthias Hauer. Research grants and study visits to France and England.
Since 1959 active as a music journalist (focus on the 19th and 20th centuries), translator and editor (including the "Gesammelte Schriften" by György Ligeti, 2 vols., Mainz: Schott 2007). Contributor to specialist journals, dictionaries and encyclopaedias in Germany and abroad. Member of numerous juries (e.g. Gustav Mahler Composition Prize, Karl Sczuka Prize for Radio Drama and Radio Art).
Co-founder of the international conferences "Musik in dieser Zeit" in Boswil/Switzerland and the "Kölner Gesellschaft für Neue Musik". Since the mid-1980s also active as a speaker and interpreter of experimental poetry. 1996-2008 member of the jury for the Karl Sczuka Prize.
