Gerda Bächliaus modern

Gerda Bächli (* 4 June 1921 as Gerda Frey in Zurich; † 14 March 2013 in Winterthur) was a Swiss composer, music teacher and music therapist.

Life

Gerda Bächli grew up in a family of musicians in Zollikon. Her mother was the singer Alice Frey, her father the pianist and music teacher Walter Frey. She received lessons in rhythmics from Mimi Scheiblauer as well as in singing and piano. After the Federal Matura she worked as an actress from 1941 to 1945, first at the Stadttheater Luzern, later also at the Schauspielhaus Zurich and took acting lessons with Ellen Widmann and Ernst Ginsberg at the same time. In 1945 she went to Radio Zurich, where she worked as an announcer as well as with her own series of broadcasts and as a radio playwright. In 1950 she met her future husband, Samuel Bächli, whom she followed to Sweden. There she worked as a permanent employee at Radio Stockholm from 1952 to 1955 and produced school radio programmes as well as radio series and reports for adults, which she continued until 1970, even after the family had moved back to Zurich in 1955. The marriage produced two sons, the conductor Samuel Bächli, named after his father, and the pianist Tomas Bächli.

Parallel to her work in radio, Bächli began to work in the field of elementary music education and children’s theatre. In 1966 she completed her training as a specialist teacher for elementary music education and recorder with a diploma. Through a performance she became acquainted with the Epilepsy Clinic in Zurich and began musical work there with people with mental disabilities, which she continued until 1976. She completed further training for curative education work and began writing and publishing children’s songs for educational and therapeutic work.

From this point on, curative educational music therapy work with the disabled became her main focus. From 1976 to 1983 she worked as a music therapist at the “Wagererhof Uster”, a home for people with mental disabilities. She passed on her experience as a lecturer in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, such as at the Salzburg Summer Courses, the international “Sonnenberg Conferences” in Sankt Andreasberg, at the Rhythm Seminar in Remscheid and the special education training at the University of Dortmund. She gave courses in the GDR and worked with the dance therapist Trudi Schoop. She continued her teaching activities after her retirement until her death. She was documented in numerous film recordings.

She also became known for her songs, which often arose from concrete work and play situations and whose high musical quality is just as appreciated as their suitability for work with children and with disabled people.

Source Wiki: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Bächli