Rick Fulker

Rick Fulker discovered his dual passion for music and the German language during his school years. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in both subjects in 1977, moved to Germany soon afterwards, and made it his home.

A music journalist since 1983, Rick now heads the music department at Deutsche Welle, his team of music journalists producing content in English, German and Russian. Rick is also the host and producer of DW's Concert Hour, having practiced the trade in close collaboration with music program editors and producers in the United States, where his DW Festival Concerts are regularly broadcast.

A regular visitor at Germany's major music festivals, particularly the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Bayreuth Festival, Rick is addicted to the music of Wagner. But his music interests are exhaustive. As Leonard Bernstein once said, "There are only two kinds of music: good and bad."

Inundated by so much great music in the office, the studio and Germany's concert halls, Rick finds the sound of silence in his Eifel Mountain retreat in Germany's west all the more satisfying.

 There, he is currently fixing up an old farm with his partner, maintains a vegetable garden that is much too big, and dotes on his three cats - noting with satisfaction that they too seem to enjoy the music of Wagner.