My Story in brief
I was born in the beautiful harbour city of Hamburg in Germany. My professional life began at 21 when I joined Radio Hamburg for a two- year training "volontariat" as a radio journalist. By the time this was over I was chosen out of thousands of hopeful applicants as the first German presenter for the music TV station MTV Europe. There was one condition - a move to swinging London a city I began to love at first sight and still do, 15 years later.
Unsurpassable London is a unique mix of traditional and modern. It has its own buzz. Whatever you want, London has it from cutting edge design to bespoke tailoring, Shakespeare, sacred music, intellectual lectures to street fashion or belly-dancing. Writers, actors, artists and political exiles present their books, films, painting, ideas, opinions and complaints here. In summer during the social season everyone goes to the various traditional racing, tennis and polo events where people wear funny clothes and look forward to getting a glimpse of their Queen. And Europe is only an hour away and the flights are cheap to Europe and to the rest of the world.
I do love traveling. It is great fun in London as long as you can afford the extortionate prices- and get out regularly. Some of my favourite countries are Brazil, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, the Subcontinent, Scotland, Ireland, Italy and France. But much of these places is present in small corners in London along with the Caribbean in Brixton, the Arabian Peninsula around Edgeware Road or Knightsbridge, Little India in South Hall and Wembley and Chinatown in Soho.
Even the famous "English cuisine" has picked up due to the international influence- the national dish is not the expected- fish'n chips but curry! would you believe. London has always stood for respect towards other cultures and religions, (not just tolerance!). It has graciously enfolded its guests,- black, white yellow green or pocadot. You can wear a mohawk, dreadlocks or a headscarf- you are still part of London and also find work. In fact the queen is proud of Great Britain's multi cultural heritage. In my view as the world grows together into a global village multi cultural, multi ethnic and multi religious is the only viable society in the future. I pray other Western countries will learn from Britain and emulate it. London is unique.
When I arrived in London in 1989 to present for MTV Europe a racy new life began.
Traveling regularly and interviewing some of the major players in the entertainment world became my beat; from the Rolling Stones in Boston, together with support act Lenny Kravitz who has to be the sexiest man on stage ever, to Sir Bob Geldof at the opening of Euro Disney, Dave Steward and Neneh Cherry in Munich and Annie Lennox in LA. Interviewing one of my musical heroes, Peter Gabriel, at his Real World Studios in Bath was a highlight. Being a great musician, composer writer has never stopped him from lending a helping hand to artists from all over the world and leading them all over the world towards success.
In 1992 I carried the Olympic flame near Zaragossa in Spain as a representative of MTV. I spoke to some footballers in Istanbul and picked up presents personally from Father Christmas in Lapland. Once I was thrown on stage right before Prince to spontaneously explain our music competition at a rock festival in Germany in front of 70.000! excited fans. I had become one of the leading presenters on MTV Europe, hosting many different shows for over seven years, including the highest rated program on the channel, the "Coca Cola Report".
When one of my all time heroes, David Bowie, came up to me at the opening of the channel VH-1 in Hamburg, and asked if he could have his picture taken with me, I was speechless. Afterwards, we were talking about his former home, Berlin, which he loved but hadn't visited since the wall came down. I never got the picture though I remember it well.
Never willing to stop, with an inclination to broaden my activities I then created and hosted a youth show in Germany called Bravo TV. MTV had become such a phenomena in my home country, I received a few TV awards, including the "Golden Camera" and two "Golden Ottos".
In 1992 I was introduced to a completely different world, one that has fascinated and inspired me ever since- politics aside - The orient in general and Pakistan in particular. I visited this beautiful country numerous times. Pakistanis possess a completely different way of life. They are full of warmth and generous to the point of being humanly grand no matter how poor they are. It was humbling. Their value system included a sense of the sacred and an enveloping spirituality.
I adored the exquisite Moghul architecture in Lahore, similar to the Taj Mahal, the rich colours, spices and scents, the intricate designs of the arts and crafts from antique Afghan jewellery to modern household ware with a poetic edge, handmade wood works, dazzling rugs and the original embroidered pashmina shawls. The experiences of the Orient, the people, the nature and the different values inspired and challenged me at the same time. It led me to studying different religions, with a focus on Islam and its spiritual heart, Sufism. I listened to Sufi music again when back in London, the late but great Pakistani maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had become my favourite musician.
I was transported to another realm by enchanting quawwali, an ancient form of sacred music with lyrics more moving and poetic than anything I had ever heard in the world of pop. I went on many treks through the Himalayas deliberately seeking inviolate places untouched by tourism.
I am delighted to relay that Peter Gabriel discovered and signed him up for his label Real World and consequently worked very closely with him. Peter claims Nusrat was his greatest singing inspiration (no wonder, his voice ranged over eight octaves in one breath). The late music critique, Jeff Buckley who wrote for Interview Magazine in NY said about his love for Nusrat: "My fridge might be empty but I have every Nusrat CD in my collection" His fans read like a who is who in the world of music, they include Pavarotti, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, Bono from U2, Simple Minds and many others.
Back in the weird but wonderful world of showbiz I hosted many types of live music shows in Germany with acts like Take That, the Backstreet Boys and Lenny Kravitz driving thousands of screaming teenagers wild. I learned to understand how musicians might feel on stage and why they get addicted to the thrill of receiving such an amount of raw energy- it feels like walking on a cloud charged with electricity. Having overcome my shyness I do enjoy hosting live events now, award ceremonies, galas, conferences etc.
But after seven and a half years of this pace, I needed a break. I filled my six- month sabbatical with charity work, using some of my contacts in entertainment to raise money for school projects in the developing world. This was a greater satisfaction I had ever experienced. A short trip to the Bahamas shooting the local music festival and swimming with the dolphins followed. We bumped into legendary Germany Schlagersänger, Heino on the street, just as well, so we ended up interviewing him, too. He had been the first star I ever interviewed for MTV Europe, when he had just done had his first rap, the Enzian rap… At a party in London I got my next television presenting assignment, from September 96 I co- presented Europe's only guide to culture and entertainment, "The Ticket" for NBC Europe, which covered about every cultural event that happened.
The scope was broader, apart from pop stars I also interviewed opera singer Placido Domingo, the late Yehudi Menuhin and other luminaries like Michael Radford, director of the wonderful "Il Postino" and now "The merchant of Venice" and Ute Lemper.
In just under a year the show had gained a large and loyal following, with the stars also watching the show. It was nice to have gained respect from people in the business, who were tuning in all over Europe - Bob Geldof liked the show, which he saw while in Greece, and Naomi Campbell watched every night when she accompanied Joaquin Cortes on his European tour. She said to me that I put her to sleep every night on the tour, I asked, "I hope it wasn't that boring", she said that no they were watching the late repeat... I was glad I checked. Placido invited me to see him perform in Parsival. To my great surprised I had never seen so many beautiful women of all ages outside anyone's dressing room. Meeting all these extraordinary people was fascinating, educational and uplifting; it inspires one forward. However, after two years, the station closed down in 1998, which meant a well-deserved creative break for me.
Now preparations were heating up for the multicultural concert I had been asked to organise with the Bosnian ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Sacirbey. I had met him at the opening of the Pavarotti music centre in Mostar the year before. The idea was to bring the different factions of people together through a series of cultural events and political dialogue between leaders of different countries. I helped bring over a wonderful art exhibition by the Egyptian Dr Ahmed Moustafa, a calligrapher extraordinaire whose modern images are based on sacred verses of the Koran. He previously exhibited at the Vatican museum in Rome on invitation of the Pope himself.
One of the bands we brought to Sarajevo and went down a storm was Transglobal Underground with Natasha Atlas, they were absolutely brilliant, so was Eric Burdon of Led Zeppelin fame and the multinational French outfit, Jam and Fam. Sacirbey liked them so much he invited them to play at the United Nations. The shining eyes of thousands of Bosnians, who were so happy if only because they hadn't been to a concert since before the war, will always be with me.
I had left my handbag behind with my passport, plane ticket and money only noticing this two hours after the concert had finished at 4 am. I rushed back to the venue and saw that all the chairs had been moved to the side and believe it or not on one of the chairs, there was my bag with all the contents. Honesty and decency had survived the ugliness of the war-- very impressive considering the circumstances of the people. Back in London on the other hand, my backpack with filofax, wallet etc was stolen from under my chair in the bright daylight while having lunch on the Kings Road with a friend.
Bosnia's beauty as a country is beyond doubt and Sarajevo as a capital, stands out because of its extraordinary city scape, which ranges from Ottoman to Austro Hungarian treasures and includes the typical dark wooden Bosnian houses and shops made more beautiful in comparison with the soulless communist skyscrapers, all this interlaced with many ruins of the war. There is a lot of beauty to be found amidst the destruction.
Mostar is a dreamy ancient town with cobble stoned roads and many cafes along the banks of the river underneath foliage of trees. However it was hit mercilessly from two sides. The houses in the main street are shocking testimonials to the horrors war, pockmarked with bullet holes and the streets are dented by bomb craters. Located nearby is the jewel of the country, Blagaj, where a Sufi tekkje, built 500 years ago at the foot of a mountain that rushes to the sky. The cliff drops into a deep turquoise water pool that flows into a river flanked by trees.
During our visit we met people from Germany, the US and Italy, who were all drawn to this oasis of eternal peace, beauty and tranquility. The Bosnian people in general are very warm with quite a black sense of humour but scratched the surface and there is a tremendous amount of pain and sadness underneath, literally every one can tell stories of relatives who were killed in the war etc. Immediately one feels compassion and the urge wanting to help. Bosnia deserves to attract foreign investment, the Winter Olympics and a special kind of tourism to rise from the ashes. It is an extraordinary place that will inspire and transform the visitor for life.
Back in London the glitter of showbiz promises nothing new for me. I was ready now to explore other interests in more depth, so I started studying natural medicine with Westminster University, including herbs, aromatherapy, Qui gong, Chinese medicine, Flower essences and homeopathy.
This was a new, fascinating world for me. The holistic way of seeing man and nature, health and disease and how things are connected. Since then I began specialising in homeopathy. I have now pursued this form of energy medicine for a number of years and I am always amazed by some of its magical results.
I am a living testimony of that magic myself. I managed to get rid off my hay fever after more than 25 years. Enjoying summers without constantly sneezing and snuffling or the unpleasant side effects of being loaded daily with anti histamines is like a miracle.
There is actually nothing in the remedies but the energy of a substance, which resonates with our own healing energy and brings us back to centre, when we are off so to say. I wasn't surprised when I discovered in what excellent company I am, many famous personalities have been great fans of homeopathy since centuries- the author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe directly refers to the law of similars in his play "Faust" where he says: "To like things like, what ever one may ail; there is certain help". Mark Twain was a fan, so was Charles Dickens, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the jazz player Dizzy Gillespie the Indian statesman Mahatma Ghandi and John D Rockefeller. In our time Angelica Huston, Boris Becker, Catherine Zeta Jones, Cher, Diana von Fürstenberg, Jane Fonda, Jerry Hall, Martina Navratilova, Martin Sheen, Paul Mc Cartney, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Tina Turner, Tony Blair and Whoopi Goldberg all use homeopathic medicines to improve their health and wellbeing.
Please check my other website, www.energy-for-health.com for more info. Apart from homeopathy, one of my favourite projects is the development of my own range of natural cosmetics and food supplements. On my travels through the Orient I have discovered a wonderful traditional healing substance, which has been used for centuries. My source is now in Egypt. This combined with exotic essential oils, which are only found in Eastern countries will make a unique and effective natural cosmetics and food supplement. Will keep you posted!
From November 2000 till April 2001 I have been presenting a program called "Earth and Space" for www.now.com, an internet TV station. This was an exciting move from entertainment to nature- about space and everything that goes on in the universe, the earth, mother nature, the environment, wildlife etc, all my favourite interests. But, the program was ahead of its time, people don't watch TV on the internet as yet, the hardware was just not available.
I have qualified as a homeopath in 2002 have been building up my practice in London ever since.
I enjoyed another short stint in TV at the beginning of 2003 working as an anchor and reporter on a global news TV station called ATV. It became an interesting new challenge because it focused on the Middle East and was reporting the news from an Eastern viewpoint albeit all through highly trained BBC journalists. The station didn't have stable funding and went down just at the time of the war on Iraq.
Since then I have been doing media work in the field of natural health. It combines my passion for all things natural with my media expertise. I write for the English or German press, appear on TV and radio (Sky news, BBC London, LBC) commenting on health issues and giving homeopathic health tips. In fact for half a year in 2004 I hosted a weekly slot giving natural health tips to viewers of RTL TV's lunchtime magazine program, Punkt 12. Eventually the boss with the vision left and the slot was replaced by plastic surgery live and redecorating your home- what can you say…
I do have various strings to my bow. I am recognised across Europe within the age group that used to watch MTV Europe and NBC Europe between 89 and 98 and totally fluent in English as well as German. One of my so called bread and butter jobs has always been hosting live events around Europe from galas and award ceremonies to corporate events and I love them, they are always fun, you only deal with winners on stage, and you get to wear all your glamorous dresses.
In September 2003 I launched my online homeopathic clinic www.energy-for-health.com. Do check it out…you'll find great health tips for traveling, children and first aid and you can benefit from homeopathic treatment at your convenience wherever you are in Europe and whenever you want.
My activities in the field of natural health are continuing. I love practicing and helping people achieving vibrant health with natural ways and I aim to do more media work in this direction as well because I can't help myself but wanting to share what I am enthusiastic about. If people knew how effective homeopathy is for so many health conditions - mental, emotional and physical - they would be much happier and healthier. In private I live as natural and green as possible - I eat wholesome and organic when I can to ensure optimum nutrition, I practice yoga and do other sports, spend as much time in nature as possible and generally try to have a balance between mind body and spirit, which is a challenge living in a busy city and of course I enjoy some of what London has to offer - special concerts, theatre performances art shows, lectures etc.

Kristiane Backer