Wiener also received the special prize for chamber music for the best interpretation of the first movement of the Trio No. 1 in D minor op. 49 by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. The jury of critics particularly praised Wiener's musical and expressive intelligence as well as his unique approach to the compositions.

Simon Wiener received violin lessons from the age of four and a half. From 2010 to 2014, he was a student of Zakhar Bron. He then continued his master's studies with Renaud Capuçon at the University of Lausanne, where he completed his soloist diploma with distinction in 2018. He is currently a student of Ilya Gringolts at the ZHdK in Zurich.

Held every three years, the Augsburg Leopold Mozart Competition is one of the most prestigious violin competitions. It is a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC), Geneva.

The organizers were delighted: there was a large turnout on 5 June at the Allresto in Bern, with around 35 representatives from various music associations and parliament listening to David Vitali, head of the "Culture and Society" section at the Federal Office of Culture (FOC). The meeting was hosted by the Parliamentary Group for Music (PGM) and its president, National Councillor Stefan Müller-Altermatt. The invitation with the title The new cultural message hot off the press: the federal government's proposals and the demands of the music sector - harmonious or dissonant? enclosed were the Comments and questions from the Swiss Music Council on the Culture Dispatch 2021 ff.

The Swiss Music Council (SMR) had already developed the basis for this paper together with its members in summer 2018 and discussed the seven core concerns of the music sector arising from these consultations with the BAK and Pro Helvetia on September 6, 2018. In summary, these were: 1. appreciation of music in general, 2. debate on fair compensation for authors' and performers' rights vs. internet freedom, 3. enabling cross-sector projects, 4. start-up funding, 5. long-term development strategies for the three genres of folk music, contemporary music and classical music, 6. promotion of Swiss music abroad and 7. implementation of Article 67a "Musical Education" of the Federal Constitution.

Vitali began by explaining the background to the cultural message published on May 29 and referred to the continuity of its strategic development lines "Cultural Participation", "Social Cohesion" and "Creation and Innovation", before moving on to innovations. He focused his remarks on the implementation of the music article, for which his section is responsible. The Youth and Music program is to be further expanded and a talent promotion program is to be set up in collaboration with music schools and music academies. The introduction of a talent card based on the Youth + Sport model is planned. To this end, the BAK is requesting CHF 25.6 million for the entire funding period - around CHF 8 million more than in the previous period. In addition, a fourth paragraph is to be added to Article 67a of the Federal Constitution on music, which currently reads: "It [the Confederation] may promote musically talented individuals through specific measures." Christine Bouvard, President of the Swiss Association of Music Schools, emphasized the lack of binding nature of this optional formulation in the subsequent question and answer session.

All other aspects of the draft relating to music were merely touched on, as neither a representative from the BAK's "Cultural Creation" section nor from Pro Helvetia were present. The delegates of Sonart - Music Creators Switzerland formulated the expectation that the organizations of professional creative artists should not be limited in the cultural message exclusively to their role as trade union service providers. They must - like their partner organizations abroad - also be perceived as the only nationally active and therefore indispensable mediators of networking, discourse and content exchange, even if the funds for the latter no longer flow from the federal treasury.

Now is the time to seize the opportunity of the consultation process and to formulate the specific concerns clearly and unambiguously. The Swiss Music Council will draft a template for its members. They are free to edit the template as they wish or write their own statement. These can be sent to the following address by September 20, 2019 StabsstelleDirektion@bak.admin.ch be sent. The Cultural Dispatch is expected to be adopted in February 2020, after which it will go to Parliament and enter into force on January 1, 2021.

The fifth graders stand on the stage with concentration. Some are playing percussion instruments, one girl has put a guitar on her lap and is plucking on it. A group of children whistle and make sounds with their mouths: humming, squeaking, popping, clicking. A child lets water run into a container, the sound is amplified by microphones.

The piece that can be heard here was created by the children as part of the Klangradar project. The concept: composers visit a school for three months and embark on a sound expedition together with the pupils. Klangradar and the results of this year's project phase on the theme of "Happiness. A search for sound traces" were presented at the conference Setting off into new worlds of listening. School & sound research on May 23, 2019 in Berlin. The event was organized and hosted by the Young Ears Network.
 

Photo: Maren Strehlau

As composer Cathy Milliken explained in her introductory keynote speech, anyone who wants to lead such a collaborative composition process must have the paradoxical ability to lead and follow at the same time. Because only those who really engage with the soundscapes that the other participants bring with them can create "new" music and go beyond the limitations of their own ideas of sound.

Music educator Barbara Balba Weber from Bern University of the Arts also emphasized that openness is one of the qualities needed for such music education projects. In the encounter between students, teachers and professional musicians, very different ideas of what music is come together - and in the best case, merge into an unheard-of new whole. Every timbre, every idea of sound has its place, and so collaborative composing becomes an exercise in democracy, diversity and equality.
 

Photo: Maren Strehlau

How sound experiments can be incorporated into everyday school life was presented in a tour of "Sound research in school practice". For example, the "Soundwalk". Led by musician and cultural scientist Manuel Schwiers, a group moved through the Kreuzberg summer afternoon listening. What does the transition from the backyard to the street actually sound like? What sound environments do I encounter as I move through the city? And what influence do I have by focusing my attention on different aspects of the city's sound? Is this perhaps already a kind of composition? After several intensive phases of listening, such questions were discussed everywhere, and it became clear that simply listening to the environment, for which no further materials are necessary, can offer many possible approaches for working with pupils - at least if they succeed in engaging in this kind of heightened perception.

The composer Steffi Weismann makes the pupils' surroundings sound in a slightly different way, namely by having them build their own instruments from everyday objects. One of her discoveries: the squeaking noises that polystyrene makes when it is moistened and rubbed against glass panes. Weismann also builds instruments with the children from buckets, plastic packaging and rubber bands, which are used in the composition projects.
 

Photo: Maren Strehlau

How apps can be used for educational sound work was presented by musician Matthias Krebs, who is exploring the sound possibilities of the Elbphilharmonie building in Hamburg together with pupils. They use tablets to create short video sequences that can be digitally edited, combined and looped to create their own sound sequences.

The sound artist and gallery owner Knut Remond expands the dimensions of what sound actually is to include sculpture. His experiment presented at the conference: go out, listen to your surroundings - and then transform what you hear into a "sound sculpture" with the help of plasticine or clay. What sounds might be created when these sculptures are in turn interpreted by musicians?

The conference proved that there is no shortage of ideas for sound experiments. And in the panel discussion "What does the school of the future sound like?" it became clear that more and more schools are getting involved in such projects, even if the fixed structures of everyday school life do not exactly make this easy. The conference participants certainly took home some inspiration as to how they too can contribute in future to making schools sound like diversity, community and a new beginning.
 

Labhart, who was born on Lake Constance in 1944 and has lived in Endingen in the canton of Aargau for many years, has worked as an editor and journalist for radio, television and print media. He has worked as a freelance music researcher, dramaturge and curator for over 40 years. During this time, he has conceived and designed dozens of exhibitions, organized concert series by Aargau and international composers and written monographs on Aargau artists such as Peter Mieg, Martin Ruf and Werner Wehrli. With the support of his wife Dora, he has also amassed a large archive of specialist literature, scores, autographs, recordings, concert programs and much more over the decades.

With the new recognition award created in 2017, the Aargau Board of Trustees honors special achievements in the field of cultural mediation. As with the Canton of Aargau Art Prize, the Canton of Aargau writes that the aim is not least to draw the attention of a wider audience to work that is often less in the spotlight.

Florian Scholz will start next season as artistic director designate and will assume overall artistic responsibility at the Konzert Theater Bern from 2021. Swiss theater director Roger Vontobel will also be joining the KTB from this season onwards

KTB writes that Scholz's work at a multidisciplinary theater was a key factor in his selection: as the director of the Theater des Landes Kärnten and the City of Klagenfurt, he has brought around 15 new productions to the stage each season with over 250 permanent employees in the fields of opera and music theater, drama, dance as well as children's and youth theater in around 200 performances. He is responsible for all genres and, as artistic director of the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra, is also responsible for concerts.

Before his directorship at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Florian Scholz, who completed a postgraduate degree in theater management at the University of Zurich, worked as Director of International Relations and Special Projects at the Bavarian State Opera under Nikolaus Bachler in Munich (2006-2012). Among other things, he was responsible for curating the special program of the Munich Opera Festival. Prior to this, he worked at the Opéra National de Paris as assistant to Gerard Mortier and at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar as venue manager and at the Schaubühne Berlin as assistant director to Thomas Ostermeier. Between 1995 and 2000, after studying at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, the Heidelberg native worked as an actor on various German-speaking stages.

Acting director Roger Vontobel joins Florian Scholz's team. Born in Zurich in 1977, Vontobel studied drama directing at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. He has directed at the Schauspiel Essen and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg as well as the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Maxim Gorki Theater, Schauspiel Köln, the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen and the Théâtre National de la Colline in Paris. From 2011-2016, Vontobel was in-house director at Schauspielhaus Bochum and has held the same position at Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf since 2016.

The director was selected by the search committee in a multi-stage process. It was chaired by Nadine Borter, President of the KTB Foundation Board. Other members of the search committee were Anna Badora, Georges Delnon, Marcel Brülhart, Markus Hongler, Ueli Studer, Hansueli Glarner and Giulia Meier.

While the budget restructuring program was the reason for this extraordinary measure five years ago, the necessary conditions are no longer met today, writes the city. The temporary increase in the municipal tax rate, which was also decided as a restructuring measure, has therefore been reversed by the Grand Municipal Council with reference to the easing of the city's financial situation.

As a result, the City Council considered it appropriate and contractually advisable to cancel the subsidy cuts to the two affected institutions, Musikkollegium Winterthur and Swiss Science Center Technorama, from 2019. The City Council is responsible for reversing this cost-cutting measure. The Grand Municipal Council has also approved the budget adjustment requested by the City Council.

The reversal is all the more justified, according to the city, as the contributions for all other subsidized cultural institutions have already been adjusted by the Grand Municipal Council as part of the overall assessment of the fixed-term contracts on the one hand, and as part of the museum concept on the other.
 

The collection comes from Rolf Ossenberg. For example, it includes around 300 books in various languages that deal with the band. No less important are the reports from newspapers, journals and magazines collected in 27 files, as well as audiovisual sources, writes the University of Freiburg. The latter are represented in the collection in the form of more than 500 video cassettes, which include recordings of television appearances and concerts by the band. The collection is rounded off by audio recordings, DVDs, press photographs, flyers, posters, merchandise, autographs and concert tickets.

The Pink Floyd collection is the second large fan collection of a major British rock band to be researched at the ZPKM: in 2017, the center had already received the Reinhold Karpp Rolling Stones Collection on permanent loan.
 

The Raff Archive in Lachen was recently able to make a rare acquisition. Thanks to good connections, it acquired a book from 1850 with eight original pencil drawings by the Hungarian painter and sculptor Carl Dosnyai, who lived in Weimar from 1848-1850, from the Bassenge auction house in Berlin. Joachim Raff is among those portrayed. The drawing is the first known portrait of the then 28-year-old composer from Lachen.

Franz Liszt, Raff's mentor of many years, was known for his generous support of young artists. Out of gratitude, Dosnyai dedicated "To his noble benefactor Mr. Doctor Franz Liszt" these portrait drawings. All eight full-page depictions show important artists of the Weimar court theater and the court chapel. They were also good acquaintances of Franz Liszt, who led the "New Weimar artists' colony" at the time.

Of particular significance for the Joachim Raff Society is the fact that it also includes a picture of Raff's father-in-law, the director and court actor Eduard Genast (1797-1866), who served at the court of Duke Alexander under Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The other people portrayed were also known or even friends of Joachim Raff. For example, the rising star among the violinists Joseph Joachim, who was later also a close friend of Johannes Brahms. Similar to Joachim Raff's portrait, this drawing is also considered to be the first known work of art by this later successful violinist. The famous baritone of the time Hans Feodor von Milde (1821-1899), the cellist and composer Bernhard Cossmann (1822-1910) and the pianist, organist and composer Alexander Winterberg (1834-1914) are also among those portrayed. Bernhard Cossmann launched various chamber music works by Raff in Weimar during the Silver Age in the 1850s.

The fact that the Raff Archive now has the earliest known portrait painting of the then 28-year-old Joachim Raff in its collections can be considered a minor sensation. Raff avoided posing for painters or photographers as much as possible. That is why there are unfortunately only a few photographs and pictures of him. And those that do exist show him again and again with the same motif, either as a drawing, photograph, engraving or other printing process from his most successful creative period, the 1870s.

As the illustration shows, the young Raff appears in 1850, when he had just begun his assistantship with Liszt in Weimar, surprisingly as an extremely relaxed, self-confident, almost dandyish young artist with an open jacket and shirt and a cigar in his hand. Only five years earlier, Raff had left Rapperswil as a young teacher and thus left Switzerland. In all later depictions, Raff is seen as a serious, sedate, stern, perhaps even worried and thoughtful older gentleman.

Raff, who was always regarded as a scholar, was the only one of those portrayed to write a personal and highly interesting dedication to Franz Liszt on October 29, 1850: "If self-irony reveals a person's sense of humor, it will have to be said of me that I have not rejected its bitterest demands".

The original drawings, including a dedication by Joachim Raff to Franz Liszt, can now be viewed in the Raff Archive during the usual opening hours on Saturdays or by appointment.

Aldeburgh is a good example of how culture can become an economic driver in a rural area. It was once a sleepy fishing village two hours' drive north-east of London. Then, after the Second World War, the composer Benjamin Britten and the tenor Peter Pears settled here and founded a music festival in 1948. This was the beginning of a unique development. Today, Aldeburgh is a cultural destination with international appeal. To the two and a half week festival in June visitors come not only from all over the kingdom, but now also from the continent.

The spirit of Britten, who died and was buried here in 1976, seems to hover over the place. His operas, which deal with the fate of outsiders, repressive morals and harsh nature, were written here, and his name can be found on memorial plaques and street signs. The country house where the two lived is now a museum and home to the extensive Britten archive and the financially strong Britten-Pears Foundation.
 

The foundation lives from the worldwide copyright income and is mainly dedicated to maintaining the Britten legacy, but also supports various cultural initiatives. In particular, it is heavily involved in the activities of the Snape Maltingsa cultural center on the outskirts of the village of Snape, a few miles from Aldeburgh. This is also where most of the festival events take place. The Maltings: This is the extensive site of a former malt factory, set alone in the open countryside, between meadows and an extensive reed bed. Nature and culture form a unique harmony.

Back in 1967, Britten had a factory building converted into an acoustically outstanding concert hall; even the Queen attended the opening. Today, the Maltings form a cultural cluster with concert series throughout the year, courses for amateurs and professionals, rehearsal rooms, artists' studios, galleries and an infrastructure with restaurants and stores. The whole thing is managed by Roger Wright, former BBC man and chief planner of the London Proms. He plans to significantly expand the international connections in the coming years.
 

Photo: Max Nyffeler

Concert break in the evening sun

Britten is not only invisibly present in the institutions, but also concretely musically in the festival's wide-ranging program. This year, the excellent young Castalian Quartet played the second string quartet from 1945, a tribute to Henry Purcell with symphonic dimensions. Britten operates here with historical formal ideas and concludes provocatively with the C major chord - tonality suddenly appears in a new, strange light.

The German avant-garde in particular has always turned up its nose at Britten because of such ideas. On the island, on the other hand, he is regarded as a figure of the century by a wide audience - understandable in view of a work such as this quartet, which appeals directly through its emotional power and musical intelligence. Perhaps it is time to take a closer look at this composer's instrumental oeuvre in this country too.

This thought comes to mind all the more in the case of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Britten wrote the song cycle after the memorable concert that he performed together with Yehudi Menuhin right after the end of the war. in front of the liberated prisoners in the German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. The horror and outrage at what he had seen echo in the songs and combine with the inner turmoil of the poems to create a stirring personal confession. This is great art of timeless topicality. The tenor Mark Padmore, supported on the piano by Andrew West, struck the perfect note, and before the concert he engaged in a knowledgeable conversation on stage with the writer Lavinia Greenlaw and the musicologist Kate Kennedy about the songs and their authors.
 

Photo: Aldeburgh Festival

Mark Padmore in conversation about Britten's "Holy Sonnets of John Donne"

Loosely moderated concerts by the artists are a trademark of the festival, which successfully strives to break down cultural barriers. The aesthetic horizon is broad, and there is also room for the unwieldy, from Boulez to Birtwistle. Or, as in Pierre-Laurent Aimard's piano recital, little-known works by Luigi Dallapiccola and the pianistically impressive Shadowlines by George Benjamin. The English vocal ensemble Tenebrae marked the opposite pole with works from the English Renaissance, performed with consummate purity and mixed with vocal movements by James MacMillan, who continues this tradition.

In addition to Padmore and the soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, Thomas Larcher, born in Innsbruck in 1963, composer and former piano professor in Basel, was invited as artist in residence this time. Among other works, he performed the song cycle A Padmore Cyclewhich he wrote to suit his singer friend. Larcher consistently follows his own path between miniatures à la Kurtág and Schubert reminiscences, musical impressions of everyday life and neo-tonal sprinklings. Also in Poems, twelve pieces for pianists and other childrensuch tones can be heard. He skilfully addresses his alpine origins and closeness to nature, the loss of which he simultaneously laments in a manner critical of civilization. He thus proves himself to be a true romantic of our time.
 

With the competition for compositions and songwriting, the canton is pursuing the goal of promoting music as set out in its cultural concept, according to a press release. In addition to cultivating the tried and tested, experiments are also to be made possible and artistic musical talents specifically promoted.

We are looking for ideas for compositions and arrangements that expand the repertoire of music formations and bands. According to the canton, the composer should define the style and for which ensemble or instrumentation the composition is to be written. Musicians in the styles of classical music, new music, folk music, jazz, rock, pop, electronica and so on are invited to enter.

Composers are invited to submit their applications to the Office of Culture by August 31, 2019. The submissions will be assessed by a panel of experts. From the applications received by the end of November 2019, they will select the projects that are to be realized and performed by spring 2020.

A total of CHF 30,000 is available for the realization. A maximum amount of CHF 12,000 will be awarded per composition. The amount of the grant will be adjusted to the time required for the composition. Detailed information on the procedure and conditions can be found on the canton's website: www.ar.ch/kompositionswettbewerb.
 

The handbook contains articles in German, French and Italian, preceded by summaries in these three languages. The "Handbuch Kulturelle Teilhabe" is available from bookshops and can also be downloaded free of charge as a PDF from the websites of the Federal Office of Culture, the Conference of Cantonal Cultural Affairs Officers (KBK), the Cities Conference on Culture (SKK) and Seismo Verlag.

The National Cultural Dialogue was established in 2011 and brings together representatives of the political authorities and cultural promotion bodies of the cantons, cities, municipalities and the Confederation. Its work is based on an agreement from 2011 and the 2016-2020 work program adopted in April 2016. The political authorities form the strategic steering body of the National Cultural Dialogue with the head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA), representatives of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), the Swiss Association of Cities (SSV) and the Swiss Association of Communes (SGV).

Link to download:
https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/57315.pdf

The festival attracts around 350 visitors every year "with a unique sound experience", writes the canton. The active promotion of a cappella music enriches the Ausserschwyz music scene, especially as the festival cultivates a cappella singing "in all its different forms and in soundscapes ranging from classical to international folk music to pop and jazz".

For five years now, the "Sing dein Ding" talent competition has also been an integral part of the festival, giving young Swiss a cappella groups the chance to perform in front of an audience for the first time.

The Cultural Commission of the Canton of Schwyz also honored the historian, folklorist, lecturer and cultural mediator Werner Röllin with the 2019 Recognition Award of the Canton of Schwyz. The visual artist and curator Mischa Camenzind also received a sponsorship award. A cultural sponsorship award from the canton is endowed with CHF 5,000.

Next Sunday, June 16, the Valais new music duo UMS 'n JIP (Ulrike Mayer-Spohn and Javier Hagen) will perform a concert at the Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich together with Eva Nievergelt, soprano, and Walter Prossnitz, piano, to mark the 80th birthday of Zurich composer Maria Porten. Maria Porten is a late-comer: born in the midst of the turmoil of war in Germany, she was initially denied a career as a composer. She worked as a musicologist and professor in the USA, then in Zurich, and finally dared to follow her vocation as a composer at the age of 60. Politically committed, with a sure instinct for catchy and topical texts and a vivid compositional language, she has created a rich oeuvre of over 50 works over the past 20 years. Many of these have been documented by Swiss Radio or recorded on CD. She has been a loyal companion and supporter of UMS 'n JIP from the very beginning: in return, UMS 'n JIP have performed her works in over 40 countries, including at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, at Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and at the Cairo Contemporary Music Days. UMS 'n JIP are one of the most productive and active new music laboratories of the present day: they have given over 1000 concerts since 2007, performing individual works over 100 times. Their exemplary and sustainable production concept as performers and composers has been recognized with over 20 international awards. With this concert, they are not only presenting a tribute to Maria Porten, but also to the courage to take on new challenges at every stage of life. The concert in Zurich starts at 8 pm.

Further concerts will take place in Basel (today, June 14, Unternehmen Mitte, 8 p.m.) and Bern (June 17, 8 p.m., Ono, das Kulturlokal).
 

Tröndle has presented the world's first comprehensive study on non-attendance research. In the study, non-attendees are defined as people who have attended an opera or theater performance or a concert of classical or contemporary music less than once in the past twelve months.

In a first step, Tröndle and his team surveyed 1264 students in Berlin and Potsdam about their leisure behavior, educational background, affinity for the arts and barriers to attending cultural events. In a second step, around 80 participants in the first study, who turned out to be non-attendees, were invited to performances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Neuköllner Oper and the Schaubühne Berlin. They were interviewed before and after the performance.

According to Tröndle, the results of the study reveal the following rule of thumb: The closer art is to young people, the more likely they are to visit cultural institutions. Closeness must be understood as a multi-dimensional concept: It implies closeness to art through socialization at home, through knowledge about art, through their own artistic activities, through contact with art at school, among friends and when visiting cultural institutions, through their own taste in music and leisure preferences as well as through the range and ambience of cultural organizations.

For the first time, the study shows a differentiated correlation between personal artistic activity and attendance at a cultural institution, as well as the effects of education and social background. Parental education also has a clear effect on attendance at opera, theater, ballet and classical concerts, with the effect being greatest if one parent is a humanities scholar and the other an art or cultural studies scholar or artist. The study also shows that playing an instrument has a positive but not a resounding effect on later attendance.

Time is not the main factor in deciding whether to visit a cultural institution. The opportunity to visit a cultural institution in the company of someone they know is a decisive factor. Personal recommendations and the internet are also key factors in young people's decisions; the traditional daily newspaper feature, on the other hand, has almost no influence. Only 25 percent of respondents were even aware of cultural institutions and their offerings - for 75 percent, cultural institutions and their channels were not anchored in their lives.

For Tröndle, the acceptance and attractiveness of cultural institutions is therefore not about breaking down barriers, but about building proximity. Cultural policy and cultural institutions should develop an interest in attracting every non-visitor to their establishment at least once a year.