JOHAN FRANZON teaches translation, interpreting, Swedish, and Nordic studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland, besides publishing academic work on the subject of song translation. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on musical comedy translation in 2009, studying the Broadway musical My Fair Lady (1956) as translated into Scandinavian languages (1959–1960), focusing both on the fidelity, singability and theatricality of the translators’ work. Aspects of that study are discussed in Franzon’s article “Musical comedy translation: Fidelity and format in the Scandinavian My Fair Lady” (in: Song and Significance. Virtues and Vices of Vocal Translation (ed: Gorlée), 2005).

Working to explore song translation as a field of translation studies, he has described five basic choices in the translingual traffic of song (“Choices in Song Translation: Singability in Print, Subtitles and Sung Performance”, The Translator 14:2, 2008), six methods for target lyric writing in the international exchange of pop songs, from near-enough to all-new (“The liberal mores of pop song translation: Slicing the source text relation six ways”, in Song Translation: Lyrics in Contexts (eds. Franzon, Greenall, Kvam & Parianou) 2021), as well as a conceptualization of song translation as a layered combination of approximations and appropriations (“Approximations and appropriations. Making Space for Song Translation in Translation Studies”, in MikaEL 15 (eds. Hartama-Heinonen, Ivaska, Kivilehto & Koponen), 2022). Some of his work is available on ResearchGate. His latest publication is a co-editor of a special issue of the journal Studia Translatorica 15: Song Translation Studies, available online.
 

As a song translator, he translated a few musicals into Swedish (The Wizard of Oz, Cabaret) into Swedish, before his academic career in Finland. Lately, he has translated Finnish children’s songs into Swedish and is currently working on an opera that will be produced in both Finnish and Swedish in Helsinki in the fall of 2025.

PETER LOW is a Senior Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch (New Zealand) and his fields of research are Translation Theory and French Poetry and Song. Both as a translator and as an academic researcher, he is one of the leading specialists in song translation. Faced with the challenge of producing singable translations, and based on his own background as a lecturer of French at the University of Canterbury and as a trained pianist, he devised an original method which he calls the “Pentathlon Principle”. He has published widely about translation matters, notably with the book Translating Song (Routledge 2017). 

BRETT BOLES is an award-winning musical theatre composer, lyricist, bookwriter and music director. His original musical Foreverman premiered at the New York Musical Festival where it garnered awards for Outstanding Orchestrations and the New World Stages Development Prize. Brett has also collaborated with composer Natalie Tenenbaum on an adaptation of Benjamin Button, which has had showings at the York Theatre Off-Broadway and the Southwark Playhouse in London. His new musical Time Stops had its World Premier production two years ago at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, FL. The show was helmed by Tony Award Winning Producer (Hadestown, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) and Emmy Winner/Grammy Nominee Michael Moritz Jr. Brett has also written original material for three of the four original Broadway Matildas, which they premiered at 54 Below. Brett’s work has been performed by Broadway greats including Tony Winner Norbert Leo Butz, and Tony Nominees Jeremy Jordan, Josh Young, and Kate Baldwin. In 2013, he co-conceived From Broadway With Love: A Benefit Concert for Sandy Hook with Tony-winning producer and founder/president of Broadway Records Van Dean (aired on PBS 2013). As a vocal arranger, Brett has worked with Seth Rudetsky, arranging work for Stephanie Mills and Orfeh for the Concerts for America series, and currently serves as Randy Rainbow's vocal arranger. He also has a social media series called The M Tea, with over 6000,000 followers between TikTok and Instagram (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Paul, and many more are fans and followers). Brett is the founder of Transformational Songwriting (the largest private online songwriting education program in the United States) and a proud member of the Tony-honored BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and the Dramatists Guild of America.

@brettboles on TikTok | @thebrettboles on Instagram

KEVIN SCHROEDER is one of the most successful new German musical authors. The world premiere of Lotte was nominated for the German Musical Theatre Award in seven categories in 2015, including Best Book and Best Lyrics. In 2017, he was honoured by the Academy for Best Lyrics for Mehr ‒ Vom Fischer und seiner Frau, and in 2018 Fack ju Göhte won the award for Best Musical. Die Tagebücher von Adam und Eva (The Diaries of Adam and Eve), based on texts by Mark Twain, have been seen throughout the German-speaking world since their premiere at Berlin’s Admiralspalast in 2012. 2022 saw the world premiere of Robin Hood, which was created together with Dennis Martin and Chris De Burgh. He was also involved as a songwriter in the Swiss musical Dällebach Kari and the revues Show Me and The One at the Friedrichstadt Palast Berlin.

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He is also one of the most renowned translators for English-language musicals. His translation of Hamilton, together with the Berlin songwriter Sera Finale, was called a masterpiece by the New York Times. He wrote the German lyrics for numerous English-language musicals such as Disney’s Frozen, Gershwin’s Crazy for You, Kinky Boots or the Stage Entertainment production of Chicago as well as book and song lyrics for 9 to 5, The Count of Monte Cristo, Chess and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Together with Heiko Wohlgemuth he wrote the German lyrics for Disney’s Aladdin, Sister Act and Legally Blonde as well as the translation of the book and song lyrics for Shrek ‒ The Musical and the Salzburg premiere of The Sound of Music. He is also one of the founders of schreib:maschine, the only open stage for new German-language musicals, and is committed to the further development of the genre as part of the German-language cultural landscape.

MARÍA OVELAR is the author of the lyrics for the original series David el Gnomo and La llamada de los Gnomos. She has adapted the Spanish version of the songs for numerous films and series for Disney, Fox, Warner, and other production companies, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, The Phantom of the Opera... She has also directed and sung in numerous productions such as LazyTown, Barbie, The Fox and the Hound 2...

She has been a member of the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar, Lovy, and El diluvio que viene. She has recorded jingles, background vocals for albums, movies, TV, festivals... Besides composing and adapting songs for numerous artists, she has also performed in country and rock bands. At present, she teaches song dubbing and musical adaptation at Escuela de Doblaje de Canciones.

ALBERT MAS-GRIERA is a writer, scriptwriter and song adaptor. Graduated in Philology and Psychology, he is the author of the novel Escrit als estels, as well as of La ciutat dels àngels, a collection of stories. He adapted into Spanish, for the productions directed by Ricard Reguant, the songs from the musicals Chicago, West Side Story and Grease, and into Catalan, Blood Brothers, Blues in the Night, Memory... For Disney, he adapted into Spanish the lyrics of The Lion King, Toy Story and Beauty and the Beast 2, and into Catalan the lyrics of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan... He also adapted the songs for the film Anastasia into Spanish and Catalan, and for the theatrical productions of Mamma Mia!, Les Misérables, and Victor/Victoria, produced by Stage Entertainment.

MARC GÓMEZ DOMÈNECH is a song adaptor for dubbing and musical theater. Among his most recent works are the Catalan adaptation of the songs from Disney's Wish, the Spanish version of The Producers recently premiered in Barcelona, and Legally Blonde, the latter in collaboration with Daniel Anglès.

He is also a dubbing actor and musical theater actor: he has performed the role of Zazu in Disney's production of The Lion King (Madrid) and is currently a member of the cast of The Producers.

DANIEL SOTO holds a PhD in Translation and Interpreting from the Universidad de Málaga and the Université de Montréal, with his thesis titled Reception and Songs in the Translation of Musicals in Spain (2001-2021): A Descriptive and Functional Approach, which he defended in 2022.

In his thesis, he applies a descriptive-queer and functional-multimodal analysis model which updates the panorama of the reception of musicals in Spain and which also reinforces the hypothesis that musical translation is in most cases a form of translation-recreation.

He works as a translator-transcreator of web and audiovisual content, editing, marketing, board games and, mainly, video games, since 2014.

He has dedicated a part of his publications in journals or collective works to applied translation studies in song translation, the didactics of singable translation, and, mostly, the descriptive-functional analysis of the translation of musicals.

ÁNGEL FERNÁNDEZ SEBASTIÁN is an audiovisual translator and song adaptor. He has translated the scripts of films such as American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, X-Men, Pearl Harbor, Mulan... He has also written the Spanish version of songs for films like Cinderella, A Goofy Movie, Winnie the Pooh, as well as for many television series (The Muppet Show, DuckTales...).

MARCELO KOTLIAR has won six Hugo Awards, and he has translated and adapted the book and lyrics for the Argentinian productions of Heathers, Come from Away, The Who's Tommy, Falsettos, Blood Brothers, Murder for Two, Hereafter, Murder Ballad, The Rocky Horror Show, Thrill Me, Bare, First Date, Into the Woods, Ghost, Shrek, Company, Mamma Mia!... y un largo etcétera.

​ROSER BATALLA graduated in Interpretation from the ITB, and in 1987 she debuted as Yum-Yum in Dagoll Dagom's El Mikado. Since then, she has taken part in more than thirty productions - both musical and text theatre- directed by Sergi Belbel, Raül Contel, Mario Gas, Alícia Gorina, Josep Ma Miró, Sílvia Sanfeliu, Israel Solà, Claudio Tolcachir and Nelson Valente, among others. She has worked in television, film, dubbing, audiobook presentation, teaching, stage direction and, above all, translation and adaptation of text and musical theatre: she wrote the Catalan version of Sweeney Todd with Roger Peña, and for this work they received the 1995 Special Critic's Award and the 1996 FAD Prize. She has also received an award as Supporting Actress (AADPC- 1992) for Snoopy! The Musical; and the monologue Un ratolí, un gat , un canari i una boa dins l’armari by Rena Llucot earned her the Special Menció of the Critique 1993. She has been nominated as a supporting actress for El mètode Grönholm, No son maneres de matar a una dona (musical) and El principi d'Arquimedes at Premis Butaca-2003, 2004 and 2014 respectively. In 2021 she was awarded the Margarida Xirgu Memorial Award, for her professional career, owing to the monologue L’empaperat groc, directed by Xavier Quero and Frank Capdet. At present, she continues to perform in Le congrés ne marche pas, by La Calòrica, and she is working in the translation of the lyrics of Gypsy, for Teatro del Soho, for which she has also translated A Chorus Line, Company and Godspell.

SANDRA BRIZUELA has been working in dubbing translation and adaptation for more than 25 years. Her specialty is song and poem adaptation, and her new passion is Audio Description script creation. Lover of languages in general, writer, storyteller, scriptwriter, singer and astrologer, she defines herself as a “language artisan”. She has been training and guiding translators for more than 20 years from her position in Nonstop – today Media Access Company - as Translation and Adaptation Supervisor. Also, since 2020, she’s been defining creative guidelines for NatGeo and Star.

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Amongst her favorite Works are the lyrics adaptations into Latam Spanish for Disney’s Doc McStuffins and Star Vs. the Forces of Evil; for Star’s Bob’s Burgers and Netflix’s The Archies and Dee and Friends in Oz. In 2020, she faced the big challenge of translating and adapting into English 30 María Elena Walsh’s classic songs for an audiovisual series for Petits Habitants. Lately, she has been mastering the art of Audio Description scriptwriting, creating AD scripts for different dubbing companies.

GEN PARTON-SHIN was raised in England, Japan, and Korea, an he has built an international career in musical theatre, television, and lyrical translation. U.S. credits include L’Art Reste (in concert), Miss Saigon and The History Boys, as well as participation in readings and workshops for productions such as Daigoro (Ars Nova), Maybe Happy Ending, KPOP, Black Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha, Other World, Poupelle of Chimney Town, Platinum Dreams, Tiananmen, Lost Shanghai, 2 Nights and 3 Days, Railroad, Billy and the Golden Pencil, Hold On and Mafatu. In Japan, stage credits include Churak, Rent, Next to Normal, The Rocky Horror Show, Dracula, Bare and The Last Five Years. Screen work includes appearances in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and the Japanese independent drama Hodo Buzz. As a song translator, Gen has adapted works such as 35MM, Poupelle of Chimney Town and Allegiance (subtitles) into Japanese. He is currently involved in the upcoming production of Take Me Out Japan 2025.

ANNA MACH is currently working on her Ph.D. in translation studies, about the translations of The Tiger Lillies’ songs into Polish. She holds degrees in applied linguistics (University of Warsaw) and in law (Jagiellonian University). Her main field of academic interest is music-linked translation, with a particular focus on alternative genres, such as punk cabaret, and on the role of a song translator as a cultural mediator. As she is a song translator herself, she combines theoretical research with translational practice.

MAŁGORZATA KODURA PhD is a certified Polish-English translator and a translator trainer, working as Assistant Professor at the University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. She is staff member of the Chair of Translation Education, whose translation programme is included in European Master’s in Translation network. She teaches practical courses in translation technologies and audiovisual translation. Her research interests focus on translator training for the digital age and on creativity in translation.

ANA RODRÍGUEZ has studied and taught at the Universities of Valladolid, Madrid (Complutense), and Salamanca, where she obtained her PhD. She is currently a professor of translation and a member of various research projects on accessible audiovisual translation (University of Granada, University of Valladolid, and Song Dubbing School), focusing her publications and conference presentations on this field. She also teaches in the Master's program on Film Audio Description (AD).

JULIA ELVIRA MORCILO trained as a translator and interpreter at the University of Alicante. Driven by her interest in film and the audiovisual field, she completed the Master’s Degree in Professional Translation, specializing in Audiovisual Translation and Accessibility, at the University of Granada. During this period, she collaborated with the Kaleidoscope Association on cultural accessibility projects, taking part in the editing, recording, and audio description scripting of the short film Aqueronte, which will be screened at the ONCE headquarters in Granada in 2025. 

For her Master’s thesis, she explored the musical genre and, under the dedicated supervision of Ana Rodríguez, developed a proposal for dubbing the songs from High School Musical 3: Senior Year. This conference presentation will offer a reflection on the challenges of musical dubbing, using her project as a case study.

RAYCO H. GONZÁLEZ MONTESINO is a faculty member at the School of Education Sciences at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC). He holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics (University of Vigo), a diploma in Speech Therapy (University of La Laguna, ULL), and a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology (UNED). He has completed several postgraduate programs, including a Master’s in Research in Translation and Interpreting (Jaume I University), a Master’s in Education and Diversity (ULL), and a Master’s in Spanish Sign Language Interpreting (ULL). He teaches in the Bachelor's Degree in Spanish Sign Language and the Deaf Community (URJC), with research focused on practice and training in sign language translation and interpreting. He is a member of URJC’s established Research Group on Inclusive Education, People with Disabilities, and Universal Accessibility (DIVERSIA), and serves as principal investigator of the project CoMParTIR: Multilingual Parallel Subcorpus of Translations and Interpretations (2023–27), funded by Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation.

ELENA LÓPEZ BURGOS holds a PhD from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) in Humanities: Language and Culture, with a dissertation titled Cantando en silencio: una aproximación a la traducción de canciones a la lengua de signos española (Singing in Silence: An Approach to the Translation of Songs into Spanish Sign Language). She completed a Master’s in Language Science and Hispanic Linguistics at UNED and earned a degree in Hispanic Philology from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). She is currently a lecturer at URJC in the Bachelor's Degree in Spanish Sign Language and the Deaf Community, and works as a Spanish Sign Language interpreter specializing in the performing arts.

JOAN MANUEL SEGURA-GUISCAFRÉ holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona, has completed several courses in song translation and adaptation, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Advanced Theatre Studies at the International University of La Rioja. He has performed in musicals such as The Rocky Horror Show and Shrek, and has directed productions including Jesus Christ Superstar and The Grinch: The Musical, for which he also served as the adaptor.

DANIELA BRAJÍN MEDINA is an English philologist and English-Spanish translator with additional training in the field of music. Her main area of interest is the translation of songs from musicals, where she combines her linguistic and musical expertise to create versions that faithfully preserve the content, rhythm, and style of the original works, sensitively adapting them to the new language.

LINGLI XIE is a Lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at the National University of Defense Technology, China. She obtained her PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests focus broadly on the interaction between translation, audiovisual arts and technology.

BINGXIN CAI Cai is a Lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at the National University of Defense Technology, China. She obtained her PhD in Psycholinguistics from the University of Essex. Her research explores the syntactic processing of bilinguals.