INTERVIEW
The first piece of music you fell in love with:
I grew up with Baroque music, which my parents loved and my mother played herself. I still love it — to me, no later era captures that same jubilant quality quite like the Baroque. As a teenager and young adult, I played some piano, and Bach was a particular favorite — especially the Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier, whether on piano or harpsichord.
The most memorable moment with music:
I've experienced how deeply music can move us. In my mid-twenties, I had a particularly powerful experience with music.
I attended the wedding of a close friend who married a man from Ghana. During a break in the main musical program, the groom and two friends improvised on drums, playing Kpanlogo rhythms — classical Ghanaian rhythms.
I was struck like lightning. As if in a trance, I moved with the music, wishing it would never stop. My childhood awoke in my memory: I had arrived in Ghana at eight months old and returned to Germany at ten (with two years in Germany in between). Afterward, my connection to Ghana and Africa had vanished completely — until that music, so many years later, brought those early rhythms vividly back to life. Music can awaken our earliest childhood memories.
That moment sparked years of deeper engagement with Africa — its cultures, music, and more — including a two-month journey there at 28, revisiting the places of my childhood. Since then, I've known that Ghana and Africa are part of who I am — a piece of my home. I love those rhythms, the red earth, the Atlantic Ocean...
BIOGRAPHY
Growing up in Africa and moving frequently until adulthood, she went on to study Literature and Philosophy in Freiburg, continuing her studies in Berlin two years later. After graduating in 1985, she spent five years as a freelance publishing representative before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 prompted a career change.
She moved into accounting, completing an intensive course in financial bookkeeping, and quickly excelled in the field. This led to a role as an accountant for a social welfare organization, alongside part-time studies in Business Administration, earning her a degree as a certified business economist (Dipl.-Kauffrau).
She later became Head of Accounting at an international corporation, gaining broad expertise across finance. For the following 15 years, she worked independently, supporting small businesses and a tax consultancy. Seeking a new challenge, she joined MCO as an accountant since January 2023.
Alongside her professional path, painting has remained a lifelong passion — an ongoing creative outlet where she explores color and light.