2005-04-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

Erik Dorset
Baroque violinist
Translator- German-English

Contact Information:

Erik Dorset
Hans Otto Strasse 17

10407 Berlin, Germany

mobile: + 49 (176) 238 20 894
e mail: erikdorset@hotmail.com
internet: erikdorset.blogspot.com, berlindiaries.blogspot.com

About me

On the violin

After completing my violin studies in 1990 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Stephen Clapp and Marilyn McDonald, I moved to Europe. I studied baroque violin at the Schola Cantorum in Basel with Jaap Schröder and Thomas Hengelbrock and then moved to The Hague to study at the Royal Conservatory. Since 1995 I have been a violinist with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and (when not on tour with the orchestra) currently live in the German capital with my wife and daughter.

Aside from the Akademie (see: www.akamus.de), I have played together with many of the leading ensembles specializing in historical performance, including the Freiburger Barockorchester, Anima æterna, and Le Concert des Nations. I am also active as a chamber musician and doodle happily away at my Brahms Sonatas on gut strings.

See the article below regarding my ten years as an Akamus violinist….

As a translator

As a native English speaker within the German musical world, I have had ample experience when it comes to translating and interpreting. While living in Basel, I worked from 1991 until 1994 as an English teacher at the Orsini Language School. With the Akademie, we frequently tour to places where English is, if not the local language, at least the common denominator for communication. Therefore, the orchestra has not only taken me on as a violinist, but also as their in-house interpreter to bridge the language gaps the orchestra often finds itself in. Through their management, Uhde and Harckensee Music Management (see: www.uhmm.de) I also frequently translate texts and write promotional pieces in English for the orchestra.

Taking this further, I am currently studying to receive my accreditation as a German-English translator. I work using Trados compatible computer assisted translation software from linguatec. The advantage of using such software is that it has enabled me build an archive of all that I have translated up until now, thus improving the speed and accuracy of my work.

Prices/Payment for translations

I start off with a flat fee of 30 €/35 USD for texts, which covers the first hour of translation work. You can then chose from one of two options: either the amount of time taken to translate the text at 25 €/30 USD an hour, or from the number of words translated. For each word, I charge ten Euro cents/twelve cents US. I personally recommend the word option for most texts- it allows me to take the time and make the most of a translation job.

I recommend the time option for those who need translation work to be done quickly. However, please note that for rush jobs (within 48 hours) I raise the rate to 30 €/35 USD per hour. For those with a bit more time, opt for the per-word rate and know that your translation has been checked, proofread and polished to the best of my abilities.

For all of my work, I offer free updates and corrections within one year of the translation.

Proofreading and polishing of texts already written in English

Do you have a text already translated into English, but aren’t certain if the translation is 100% correct? Do you have a text that needs updating? For a flat fee of 10 €/12USD, covering the first half hour of work you can have your texts proofread, corrected, updated and polished. After the first half hour, I charge a fee of 3 Euros for six minutes of work.

Writing of promotional texts

If you like, you can also have a text written in English from scratch for your company. Please contact me directly at erikdorset@hotmail.com for more details.

Payment

Payment can either be made per check in the States, made out to Erik Dorset, or per bank transfer in Europe under the following account:

Berliner Sparkasse
Kontonummer 514093072
BLZ 10050000

An American in Berlin- or, a personal view of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

I decided to add this because the simple statement in my resume that I have been playing with the Akdemie since 1995 looked pretty thin.

The Akademie für Alte Musik was formed in 1982. What makes the orchestra special is that they are from East Germany. In other words, when Reagan was in Berlin and called upon Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall’, the Akademie was on the other side of the Iron Curtain, experimenting away on their baroque instruments and being very avant-garde without even knowing it.

My father often flew to West Berlin to work at the Max Planck Intsitute in Dahlem back in the 1980s, and many times he went into the East through Checkpoint Charlie to get cheap musical scores from Edition Peters Leipzig for me. One time, around 1987, he came back with a record of this ‘neat East German group called the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin doing Telemann.’ Then, I was already interested in historical performance and had begun taking baroque violin lessons with Marilyn McDonald at Oberlin, and when I heard the album I thought it was pretty good, but I never imagined that the faces staring out at the camera on the back cover of the record would be my future musical colleagues.

History changed all that when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, and by then the Akademie was already making its mark on the European musical scene. By the time I joined them in 1995 (as their first full-time American) they had switched over to the harmonia mundi france label for their CDs. My first project with them was the recording of the Bach Secular Cantatas, which we recorded in a church in Dahlem, ironically just across the street from where my dad worked in the 80’s. I suspect that my Dad would have never imagined that in his wildest dreams back then.

What I experienced with the Akademie has been nothing less than the success story of the ensemble becoming one of the leading baroque orchestras in the world. We have played across almost all of Europe in some of the best venues- among others, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Theatre des Champs Elysées in Paris. We’ve worked with countless prominent musicians, including Andrew Manze, René Jacobs, Andreas Scholl, and maybe most notably Cecilia Bartoli, with whom the Akademie produced a Grammy Award winning CD of Gluck arias on the Decca label. And not only has the orchestra toured across almost all of the world, this spring will be my homecoming with the orchestras debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Of course, being a musician isn’t always easy. We lead a strange life, living from hotel room to hotel room and constantly running to catch a train or plane for somewhere, arriving in the next city where in a few hours time there you have to be in top form for a concert. It produces a lot of stress.

And yet, these musicians- I don’t think the fame has gotten to their head- normally they’re too interested in finding something to eat after a concert to think about such stuff. It’s hard enough for me to believe what I write here, and to know that I have participated and experienced this too. But I’m glad that I had the chance.