When you mention alto Dina König in front of her former colleagues, they insist on her musical excellence. That’s because, in September 2020, König gave up her burgeoning career as a singer of early music. Instead, she decided to become a tram driver with the local public transportation system in Basel, Switzerland.
Musicians often view those who exit the field with a certain suspicion, seeing the practice of their art as a calling rather than a job. König’s decision to drive a tram—instead of, say, getting into real estate—seemed especially radical. The utilitarian aspect of public transportation can appear a world away from the concert hall and the people who inhabit it. In September 2020, when Basel unveiled its newly renovated hall, the Stadtkasino, the acousticians emphasized how important it was for them to block out the rumbling and squeaking of trams from a nearby square.
König was born in 1991 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Her great-grandfather was a well-regarded traditional singer and dombra player. When König was two or three years old, a friend of her mother’s noticed König singing to herself—with excellent intonation. Her mother enrolled König in a local arts school. When she was seven, König and her mother, who have German ethnic roots, moved to a small town in southeastern Bavaria. She continued her musical education there, studying voice, piano, and later violin.
As a teenager, König went through a musical crisis. “I didn’t feel like doing anything,” she said. But she continued to sing jazz, pop songs, and musicals, for her own satisfaction. König finished high school at the age of 16, and her mother encouraged her to take voice lessons at a local music school in preparation for conservatory entrance exams. It was the beginning of König’s serious engagement with classical music. In the years to follow, she developed an unusually clear-eyed view of the profession which frequently surrounds itself in fuzzy, idealistic myths.
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