• Born in Werneck/ Schweinfurt in 1953
• Studied piano (Konservatorium/ Hochschule für Musik Würzburg), musicology, catholic theology, Christian achaeology, and German at the Bavarian Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg; scholarships with the DAAD, the graduate funding body, and the DSZV
• 1982 completion of doctoral degree
• Various teaching and research appointments in Italy (including Venice and Palermo, until 1985), Regensburg (1985–1995), Vienna (IWM, 1989–1990), Poland (Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan: visiting professor 1989/90), and Finland (Turku, 1994)
• Humboldt scholarship (Feodor-Lynen-Stipendium IWM, Vienna, 1989/90)
• Habilitation at the Johann-Wolfgang-von-Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main in 1997
• Permanent visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Champaign/ Urbana (USA), between 1990 and 2000
• 1995 Fixed-term professor at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar; 1997 appointed as ordinary professor of musicology
• 1996 Managing director of the Department of Musicology at the LISZT University; head of the Department between 1997 and 1999 and between 2012 and 2014
• Member of Faculty Board, representative on the library committee, dean of studies in 2010
• since 2004, President of the International Cherubini Society
• since 2006, member of the academic advisory board of the Humboldt-Gesellschaft; 2008–2012, member of the executive board
• 2009–2013, chair of the academic advisory board of the Deutschen Studienzentrums Venedig (DSZV)
• 2010–2013, member of the chair of the Mitteldeutsche Barockmusik
• since 2013, vice-president of the DSZV
• 2015 Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Academic focus: music of the sixteenth to early-nineteenth centuries (with research interests in opera, oratorio, and church music; also select topics areas of twentieth-century music)

::: Publications (German) :::