Photo: Marco Borggreve

Oliver Schnyder

The concept and program of the Swiss Orchestra, founded in 2018 and directed by Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer, are anchored in its name. According to its self-portrayal on the website, it has "set itself the goal of bringing forgotten Swiss symphonic musicians back to the concert stage and making them directly tangible throughout Switzerland." It sees itself as a "unique bridge builder" and a "pioneer of Swiss symphonic music".

The orchestra is made up of "first-class instrumentalists of the younger generation".
Its first tour will take it to Zurich, Bern, St. Gallen and Geneva from October 20 to 27. The program includes Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto and Mozart's A little night music Jean Baptiste Edouard Dupuy's overture to the opera Youth and recklessness and Hans Huber's Serenade No. 2 Winter nights. The soloist is the Swiss pianist Oliver Schnyder.
A second tour in spring 2020 combines works by Johann Carl Eschmann and Frank Martin with Johannes Brahms' Third Symphony. The soloists are oboist Heinz Holliger and harpist Alice Belugou.

The four-genre theater is currently being managed on an interim basis by the entire management under the chairmanship of Commercial Director Anton Stocker. The designated artistic director Florian Scholz, currently still employed at Theater Klagenfurt, will take over the overall artistic management for the 2021.22 season.

Born in Basel, Zuber has been Opera and Concert Director at Konzert Theater Bern since the 2011.12 season. He created new formats such as the seat cushion concerts for children and the Schweizerhof brunch. His tenure also saw the merger between the Bern Symphony Orchestra and Konzert Theater Bern, as well as concert tours of the Bern Symphony Orchestra through China and England.

According to the jury, the trio impresses with originality in sound, music and performance, a high degree of virtuosity, strong stage presence and international potential. With traces of free jazz psychedelics from the 70s and particles of contemporary club culture, the trio's "almost telepathic interplay is all about feeling, color and texture".

The Heinz Herbert Trio has been selected by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia for priority jazz funding for the period 2018 to 2020. It has already performed at festivals and venues such as the JazzFest Berlin (2018), the Unerhoert! Festival in Zurich (2018), the Stadtgarten in Cologne (2019), the Tallinn Music Week (2019), the Willisau Jazz Festival (2017) and the Cully Jazz Festival (2016).

The Zenith Award is associated with opportunities to perform at the European Jazz Conference and at festivals organized by members of the EJN.

The 17th Swiss Clarinet Conference on November 2 at the Konsi Bern offers presentations and workshops on instrumental and pedagogical topics. The speakers are: Paula Häni, Martha Rüfli, Nora Helbling, Andreas Schöni, Richard Haynes, Nils Kohler and Mia Schultz.

The lectures are complemented by an exhibition on the latest trends in the production of clarinets and accessories. You can exchange ideas with like-minded people and attend short concerts. The newly founded Swiss Clarinet Orchestra under the direction of Marco Santilli will be heard for the first time at the closing concert.

The Administrative Court of the Canton of Aargau has partially upheld the appeal against the tender regarding the "Awarding of master builder work for the conversion of the old riding hall". The award decision was annulled and the matter was referred back to the city for a new decision, and the city council will examine the next steps in the coming days, including a possible appeal to the Federal Supreme Court. The renovation has been delayed. According to the city, the planned opening date cannot be met.

The Alte Reithalle Aarau has been used provisionally for theater, dance and music projects since 2011. Since summer 2014, Theater Tuchlaube Aarau has been responsible for the program and operation of the summer performance.
 

Oboist Katharina Suske is a founding member and current artistic director of the Freitagsakademie and laid the foundations for today's baroque music scene in the city and canton of Bern. Suske is in demand locally, regionally and internationally as a soloist, lecturer and music educator.

Born in Brazil and living in Worb, multi-instrumentalist Resli Burri has played with Patent Ochsner and Housi Wittlin, among others. He has been on the road with the music-comedy group Les trois Suisses since 1993. Burri has also composed music for Circus Monti as well as for films and other theater productions.

Founded in 2010, the instrumental ensemble Proton specializes in contemporary classical music and its world premieres. To date, the nine musicians in the core formation have performed 116 concerts. They have performed 262 works by a total of 174 composers, including 165 world premieres.

The Bernese ambient black metal band Darkspace is an integral part of the international metal scene, known for its own atmospheric sound aesthetics and dense and complex live atmosphere.

Jazz drummer, composer and performer Nicolas Wolf is being honored with the Coup de cœur 2019 prize for young talent in the amount of CHF 3,000. He appears in various formations: as a bandleader, soloist, sideman, theater and film musician, performance artist, swing drummer in big bands and guitarist in rock clubs throughout Europe.

Rafael Rosenfeld and Mary Ellen Woodside are the artistic directors of this festival, which has been taking place every fall for the past five years. In addition to the Merel Quartet, numerous other musicians will be performing, including Juliane Bans, Claudio Martínez, Roman Rabinovich and Jürg Dähler.

The opening concert sets the mood for the musical variety to come with Ottorino Respighi's "Il Tramonto" (The Sunset) for mezzo-soprano and string quartet. There will be a tango night followed by the matinee "Appartions", which will focus on "Ainsi la nuit" by Henri Dutilleux. In the evening concert "Rencontres nocturnes", Roland Moser's string quartet of the same name with mezzo-soprano will be premiered and finally, Arnold Schönberg's string sextet "Verklärte Nacht" will be performed in the closing concert.

The Grand Austrian State Prize, endowed with 30,000 euros, is Austria's highest cultural award. It is awarded once a year to an artist for outstanding achievements. It was created in 1950 and is awarded on the recommendation of the Austrian Cultural Senate without a fixed rotation principle within the fields of literature, music, visual arts and architecture for a lifetime artistic achievement.

Thomas Larcher was Artist in Residence at this year's Aldeburgh Festival. The festival also realized the British premieres of the opera "Das Jagdgewehr", which premiered at the 2018 Bregenz Festival. The Composer in Residence at the 2018 Bregenz Festival has been invited to be Composer in Residence at Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, for the 2019/2020 season.

The State Prize is the third major international award for Thomas Larcher within a short space of time - after the Prix de Composition Musicale in Monaco 2018 and the Ernst Krenek Prize of the City of Vienna 2018.

On October 4, the The German Record Critics' Award 2019 annual prizes has been announced. He writes in his press release: "134 titles were proposed by the overall jury, 129 of which made it onto the longlist, 11 of which were selected for an award by the annual committee. The spectrum of styles and genres ranges from symphonic music, pop, soul, jazz, opera and contemporary electronic music to choral and world music."

One of the awards goes to the Geneva Ascanio-production. Michael Stegemann, jury member, explains the selection as follows: "Camille Saint-Saëns composed thirteen operas, but for a long time only Samson et Dalila. There are now six more on CD. The conductor Guillaume Tourniaire had already presented himself in 2008 with the one-act opera Hélène has distinguished himself as a committed and competent Saint-Saëns interpreter. With this recording of the five-act opera premiered in Paris in 1890 Ascanio he has now succeeded in rediscovering a masterpiece in a rousing, source-accurate manner. The ensemble's young soloists are excellent, and the choir and orchestra of the Geneva Conservatoire are superb. The entire range of Saint-Saëns' operatic composition can be experienced: tableaux in the style of the Grand Opéra are juxtaposed with arias and scenes, some lyrical, some dramatic, which are just as vocally diverse as the refined colorfulness of the orchestra. In the ballet music, which lasts for almost half an hour, Saint-Saëns repeatedly echoes original music from the 16th century: Ascanio - based on a novel by Alexandre Dumas - is more or less the sequel to the Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz.

The awards (the qualitative assessments come from the annual prize jury) were given to

• the conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, her City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Kremerata Baltica for the highly expressive interpretation of the symphonies op. 30 and 152 by Mieczysław Weinberg (Deutsche Grammophon)
• the composer and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw and the Collegium Vocale Gent for the beguilingly radical second recording of the Via Crucis by Franz Liszt (Alpha Classics)
• the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo and the Experimentalstudio of the SWR for the realization of the composition Le temps, mode d'emploi by Philippe Manoury, commissioned by the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Neos)
• Martin Elste and Carsten Schmidt for the Edition 2000 years of music on record. Early music anno 1930. A discological documentation of the history of interpretation (Vienna Society for Historical Recordings)
• Émile Parisien and his Émile Parisien Quartet for the captivating album Double screening (Act)
• percussionist Marilyn Mazur and her band Shamania for the extraordinarily cosmopolitan and boundary-pushing joint production Shamania (RareNoise)
• Adrian Quesada and Eric Burton aka the soul band Black Pumas for their addictive debut album Black Pumas (Ato Records)
• the Austrian band Bilderbuch for the best gift of the year: Vernissage My Heart (Maschin Records)
• Bruce Springsteen for the lilting thirteen songs of Western Stars (Sony)
• BaoBao Chen and Tim Cole and the fifty or so musicians from the Pacific islands threatened by rising sea levels, who together created the unique album Small Island Big Song have produced (CDBaby)

Born in Córdoba, Argentina, Oña studied at the State University in La Plata and at the State University of New York in Buffalo, USA. As a conductor, he initially worked internationally on traditional repertoire before later concentrating on new music. From 1989 to 1993 he was Professor of Composition and Orchestration at the State University of La Plata.

From 1995 to 2001, Oña taught composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo and until 2003 at Birmingham University, UK, where he also conducted the Ensemble for Contemporary Music. His compositions have been performed internationally and cover the entire spectrum from chamber music to symphonic works.

According to the organizers, 105 clubs were judged in various concert venues in Burgdorf on 21 and 22 September. In addition to wind orchestras and tambourine groups, symphony orchestras and accordion ensembles also took part for the first time. The standard of the concert performances was very high, as Armin Bachmann, competition organizer, summed up. The event attracted a large audience.

Photo: #burgdorf19

Festival grounds with castle in the background

At the closing ceremony, Federal Councillor Simonette Sommaruga congratulated all participants on behalf of the Federal Council and presented the trophies to the Swiss champions. The winners with the highest number of points were Youth music Kreuzlingen (category harmony), the Young People Brass Ochlenberg (category brass band) the JAO Youth Accordion Orchestra (accordion category). No points were awarded in the symphony orchestra category; the three participating ensembles (Orchestra giovanile della Svizzera Italiana, Schwyz Youth Orchestra, Regional Youth Symphony Orchestra Solothurn) received a jury report.

Photo: #burgdorf19

Concert venue Markthalle

The Swiss Youth Music Festival is the most important event of the Swiss Youth Music Association. The next festival will be held in St. Gallen in 2023.

The professorship for Cultural Anthropology and Gender Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences has been newly created following two retirements. Marion Schulze and Alain Müller, a pair of researchers, have been appointed Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor (with tenure track); Schulze will focus on gender studies and Müller on cultural anthropology. However, bridging the gap between the two subjects is also central to both of them. They will each be employed on a 50 percent basis from January 1, 2020, as the University Council noted.

In her dissertation, Marion Schulze investigated the gender arrangements and conventions of hardcore punk with participatory field research on three continents, providing a blueprint for integrating the gender perspective into subculture theory.

In his research, Alain Müller proposes a systematic approach using the example of the music subculture hardcore punk and the urban sport of street workout in order to "anthropologically grasp the articulations of local and global as well as the collective construction of different geographical spaces and scales".

The results are impressive: 30 productions with 30 world premieres could be experienced at around 30 locations in and around Basel. As usual, decentralized, in a wide variety of spaces or outdoors - and in glorious late summer weather. Gigantic productions were paired with lively niche productions and participatory activities, but there were also frustrating idle moments. According to the organizers, the festival attracted a total of 14,738 visitors. How this figure could be determined with so many free offers remains an open question.

The Swiss Music Prize was also awarded for the third time as part of ZeitRäume. Federal Councillor Alain Berset presented the Grand Prix Music 2019 to the brothers André and Michel Décosterd, who have caused an international sensation under the name Cod.Act with their multimedia spatial sculptures that move and sound at the same time.
 

With this Festival not only composes and interprets, but also builds and designs suitable music for special spaces. This involves a lot of reflection on one's own work, an exchange between the fields of music and architecture and joint creativity. Let's take the 45 meter high tower as an example Pipe mill by Beat Gysin, the initiator and now outgoing president of the festival. Together with architects and musicians, he designed the experimental lightweight construction, which is based on tubes.

This "futuristic" organ, which was suspended from a crane in the open foyer of the Kunsthaus, was presented with concerts and performances. But when, according to the program, a performance was supposed to take place at 3.30 pm on Friday and a group of spectators had come to see it, nothing happened. After waiting for over an hour, the visitors were gone and there was no indication of when which performance would take place. That shouldn't happen with a major project like this.

Music is usually a spatial art, but here it is also carried out into the city, distributed among the people who are invited to participate. Incidentally, artistic director Bernhard Günther has also had great success with this "dissolution of boundaries" of new music at the renowned, once rather aloof Wien Modern festival. In Basel, spatial and musical designers are now trying to rethink together.

For the university project Sound and space In collaboration with the FHNW Academy of Music, students from the architecture undergraduate program built unconventional musical instruments made of steel, sheet metal or wood, for which specific pieces were then composed. These constructions were exhibited in the Vera Oeri Library of the Music Academy; visitors were also able to try out the instruments for themselves. At the entrance, for example, you came across the Noisy ladyan upright steel body that could be turned and struck with a foot pedal like a timpani. But there were also instruments that simply didn't work, they didn't sound. If a structure does not fulfill its purpose, why is it presented to visitors?
 

Anna Katharina Scheidegger / ZeitRäume Basel

"La Coupole"

Realization of Ivan Wyschnegradsky's project

Instead of going on a shopping spree, I went on a listening spree in the city. This time I chose the St. Johann district on the border with France. The meeting point for the audio walk by the artist collective fuchs&flaneure was the Buvette Saint-Louis on the Rhine. There you could take a pair of headphones and follow a guide who collected sounds with his microphone. A female voice greeted you and invited you to take a stroll through the neighborhood: The dramaturge Milena Noëmi Kowalski made great, poetically subtle and yet concrete texts related to the neighborhood. The mixture of music, language and what is actually visible has been excellently achieved here.

The old customs hall is also located in St. Johann. Master's graduates in contemporary music and improvisation presented their production here with students from the University of Art and Design Defectors - music, scenography and permanent change. Before you were allowed to enter, you put a transparent cape over your shoulders, which reflected inside. Walls covered with transparent plastic film were permanently moved on rollers and occasionally played by a performer. There were video statements by foreigners and locals on the topic of "migration", a group of students moved through the audience with their cell phones raised and making noises. One played the accordion, another the guitar, everything was electronically distorted. An original, surreal wandering for 70 minutes.

The outstandingly gigantic performances of this festival should only be mentioned here: the opening on Münsterplatz with the percussion ensemble DeciBells, the Iannis Xenakis spatial sound work Persephassa whirled around. Or the revolutionary opera, which was both scenically and musically outstanding Al gran sole carico d'amore by Luigi Nono at the Theater Basel. The grand finale was the first realization of Ivan Wyschnegradsky's visionary skylight dome project La Coupole from the 1940s. The market hall was packed for the event.
 

Both the cultural associations and Suisseculture have been pointing out the fact that the income situation of many artists is inadequate, despite their successful work. The fact that this realization has now been incorporated into the Culture Dispatch and that measures are being promised is extremely gratifying, writes Suisseculture. However, authors are massively underrepresented in Pro Helvetia's committees (Foundation Board, expert commissions and experts).

According to Suissculture, Swiss cultural practitioners in most fields are excluded from participating in numerous European festivals and competitions, while those from other nations that are also not members of the EU are apparently allowed to participate. The cultural associations are calling on the Federal Council to actively promote and develop the negotiating mandate for Switzerland's inclusion in the European cultural program. Where this is not possible, alternative measures should be taken.

Suisseculture welcomes the intentions in the area of art education. In the area of education projects, however, the expressed intention to collaborate with partners must actually take place on an equal footing. Art creation and art education should not compete with each other.

Original article:
https://www.suisseculture.ch

The music expert speaks out against calling right-wing rock a gateway drug and warns against alarmism and scaremongering. According to Hindrichs, the myth of the gateway drug is based on an early romantic idea about the power of music. At the same time, he points out that music is definitely important for the extreme right - as a source of money, for forming networks, for marking enemies and for self-assurance.

Music hardly plays a role in the recruitment of young people for the extreme right-wing scene, but without music, extreme right-wing young people would of course be missing something crucial, Hindrichs summarizes. The symposium "Right-wing music in right-wing environments" is taking place today in Koblenz.