Franziska is a saxophonist, improviser and theorist, originally from Berlin/Germany. She trained as a contemporary saxophonist in Australia, and in 2006 completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh for research into performance and theories of embodiment.

Her research is published in diverse international journals, including Leonardo, Organised Sound, Performance Research, Cambridge Publishing and Routledge. Franziska has published a book on performance and the threshold, an edited volume on user-generated content as well as a volume on improvisation in 2014 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

Franziska has performed with many international musicians including Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, Stelarc, the Avatar Orchestra, Carin Levine, Chris Brown and Evan Parker.

Her recordings include several CDs on the Creative Source label, a recording on the SLAM label with a semi-autonomous technological artifact, guitarist Han-earl Park and saxophonist Bruce Coates, a 2015 pfmentum recording of free improvisation with two Brazilian musicians and a recent Bandcamp release with her female trio flux.

A prestigious Sir Ron Rooke International Scholarship allowed her to live in Brazil in 2014, where she carried out ethnographic work on free improvisation practices. Her forthcoming work includes an ethnography of the Portuguese free improvisation community, which she will commence in August 2016.

Franziska is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Creative Arts, Queen’s University Belfast, where she coaches students in improvisation, digital performance and critical theory.

She has been the Artistic Director for the 2012 Sonorities Festival of Contemporary music and is directing the festival again in 2016.