Story · 5 min read
Martin Schäfer's legacy
Eternal Echo's very first recording was a conversation with the violinist Martin Schäfer. At the time, nobody knew what it would come to mean. Today it is his legacy.
An afternoon in 2023
When I founded Eternal Echo, I wanted to give people the chance to tell their own story. In their words, in their voice. One of the first to say yes was Martin Schäfer: a violinist and teacher who devoted his life to music and to his students.
We talked about his life, about music, about what he wanted to pass on. Martin assigned me the rights to the recording in writing so it would be preserved. Then it sat on my server for a long time. Quiet. Like so many memories whose value you can't measure in the moment.
Then the message came
After Martin passed away, the people close to him started looking for recordings of him. They found me. His student, the violin maker Franco Ferloni, watched the conversation and was deeply moved. He wrote to me:
"It is truly the spiritual and intellectual legacy of my teacher."
That recording is now becoming a documentary about Martin. His voice, his thoughts, the way he spoke about music: they are not lost, because someone took the time one afternoon to ask him questions.
Why this story stays with me
The value of a voice often only shows years later, when the person is gone and you realise how much you still wanted to ask. Martin's story is the reason Eternal Echo exists today in a new form: simpler, more personal and within reach of every family.
The idea itself came much earlier. At my grandparents' funeral, a pastor read out their lives like a list of dates. I didn't recognise them in it. Who they really were, what they believed in, what they lived through, was lost with them. I wanted to change that.
Eternal Echo in the press
Swiss media covered the beginnings of Eternal Echo (articles in German):
Tages-Anzeiger · 7 December 2023
Film portrait via QR code on a gravestone
Zurich's daily Tages-Anzeiger profiled the founding of Eternal Echo and the idea of preserving life stories for future generations. My line in it still holds true: "I want to change the way we remember people."
SonntagsBlick Magazin · 3 December 2023
A new legacy trend: he films people at the end of their lives
SonntagsBlick described how more and more people want to pass on their life story, and joined me on interviews. Why it matters to me: "So much wisdom and life experience is lost."
A lot has changed since then. Instead of elaborate film shoots, a caring AI interviewer now leads the conversations, comfortably on the phone. The principle has stayed the same: every word real. No cloned voices, no invented lines. Just the person, as they are.
Eternal Echo
Let someone ask the questions, and just listen.
A caring interviewer calls your parents or grandparents once a week. Their conversations become a keepsake book with QR codes to their real voice.