Reto Parolari first studied at the Musikhochschule Winterthur, then in Hanover, Stuttgart and Vienna. In 1973, he founded the Reto Parolari Symphony Orchestra with around forty musicians, which was dedicated to the cultivation and preservation of sophisticated light music. He has worked as a conductor with numerous orchestras in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, the Czech Republic and Austria and has realized TV and radio productions in the fields of popular music, operetta, film and musicals. As a composer and arranger, he has written several hundred works in the fields of serious and popular music, some of which have been published by his own publishing house, Edition Swiss Music.

In 1991, Reto Parolari founded the International Festival of Light Music, which was held annually in Winterthur until 2017 and developed into a well-known exchange for good underground music during this time. With the Reto Parolari Orchestra's sheet music archive, he looks after a unique musical collection that now comprises around 110,000 titles. Parolari also acted as a juror and gave symposia and workshops.

In 2004, he was awarded the Fondation Suisa Recognition Prize for his many years of work as a performer, author and publisher of upmarket light music. In 2015, he received the Carl Heinrich Ernst Art Prize for his life's work.

The Winterthur Culture Prize is endowed with 10,000 francs. With this award, the city council honors Reto Parolari's versatile and committed personality, whose work and charisma extends far beyond Winterthur. The award will be presented on December 3, 2019 at Theater Winterthur.
 

Additional funds are to be used to promote young talent, helping young artists to cover certain professional costs so that they can concentrate better on their projects. Another type of assistance provides grants for particularly promising artists, so that they are supported in the further development of their artistic careers.

The distribution of Biel's cultural products will also be promoted, including outside the city. This was previously not possible. And finally, professional support for artists will also be provided through advisory and mentoring services.
improved. The municipal council has earmarked CHF 200,000 in the culture budget for these new instruments.

In the area of cultural promotion, the City of Biel supports regional and local cultural institutions through four-year performance contracts. It also promotes cultural activities in Biel/Bienne through selective financial subsidies for individual events. Finally, it supports professional artistic creation with work grants. With a current annual budget of CHF 180,000, this instrument accounts for 2 percent of the budget of the Department of Culture. With this sum, the city responded positively to 38% of applications for work grants in 2019.

The work of the two musicians and music mediators Julien Annoni and Olivier Membrez from the Bernese Jura is multi-layered, avant-garde and always committed to contemporary music, writes the Canton of Bern. The directors of the Usinesonore association develop "contemporary music events in a spirit of openness and artistic renewal, placing particular emphasis on communication and constantly finding new forms for this".

In this way, the two musicians succeed in spreading their passion for contemporary music to audiences of all ages. The Canton of Bern honored the musician duo Annoni/Membrez "for their tireless commitment to the music of today and their innovative approach to music education" with the 2019 Cultural Education Award.

The Artra trio consists of Laurent Girard (piano), Jacqueline Wachter (accordion) and Mathias Meyer (drums). They are planning a project called "Moonshot", "It is an interdisciplinary musical-theatrical stage spectacle. It will receive a cantonal grant of 18,000 francs.

The trio's last projects were the theater "D'Sänerei ide Veefröid" by the Richterswil theater group (2019) and film music for "Die Rückkehr der Wölfe" by director Thomas Horat (2019).

The Canton of Schwyz has also awarded prizes in the visual arts category to Bruno Steiner (CHF 15,000), in the short and animated film category to Mirjam Landolt (CHF 14,000) and Silvio Ketterer (CHF 12,000) and in the theater and dance category to Bettina Zumstein (CHF 8,000).

The decline in advertising revenue at Swiss television is more dramatic than expected. On Rendez-vous am Mittag, television director Nathalie Wappler therefore declared that a recruitment freeze would be implemented. Departures will no longer be replaced and positions will be filled with a delay. In addition, the expense budgets would be slashed.

Individual programs also have to reckon with smaller budgets. According to Wappler, Sternstunde Musik will even fall victim to the cost-cutting measures completely.

The Esse jazz club, which is well-known far beyond Winterthur, has had to move out of its home at the main railway station and is moving into the former Zeughaus, where it is fitting out the new venue for concerts at a cost of CHF 675,000; it can count on CHF 180,000 from the lottery fund following a decision by the cantonal government.

The club has hosted a jazz concert every Thursday and Friday evening since May 2005. The styles range from bebop to electro. In addition, a house band, the Ghost Town Trio, plays two Wednesday evenings a month, each with a guest singer.

At ten percent, the commission (KBIK) proposes a higher cost contribution from the canton than the government council, which wanted to maintain "the completely inadequate current contributions" at three percent, write the Zurich music schools. The KBIK also deviates from the government council's proposal on another point: the preparatory courses for music studies (PreColleges), which have been offered by the music schools for years, should be coordinated with the universities of applied sciences, but not run by them. This would increase the variety of courses on offer.

The initiators are less than pleased about the capping of parental contributions at 50%, which is significantly higher than the current average. There is a risk that parental rates will drift further apart from one municipality to the next.
 

Founded in 1994 by Professor Markus Utz and under his direction ever since, the ensemble cantissimo has not only made a name for itself with spectacular rediscoveries and premieres of great masters of choral music, but also with the sound presence of its professional singers. The choir's fine, transparent quality coupled with unusual and exciting program concepts make it a sought-after vocal ensemble in Germany, Switzerland and beyond. Last year's concerts in New York, Boston and at Yale University on the east coast of the USA were both a great success and confirmation of this.

The ensemble cantissimo is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2019 in a festive and celebratory manner. Two concert projects are planned, both of which promise delightful and gripping listening experiences through interactions with an instrumental soloist and a reciter: Love - Songs of Love and the Mass in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Both projects will be performed in several concerts.

Under the title Love - Songs of Love cantissimo focuses on a central and global theme of humanity - love. The ensemble has selected masterful settings of the "Song of Songs" from the early Baroque to the present day and combines them in a stylistically transgressive dialog with a solo, improvising flute played by Zurich flutist Matthias Ziegler. He is committed to traditional flute literature, contemporary music and musical concepts between classical and jazz.

The program includes vivid Song of Songs motets by the early Baroque composer Melchior Franck, the melodious Four Songs of Love by the recently deceased Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström and the seven-part a cappella cantata Le Cantique des Cantiques by Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur. As a contemporary of Olivier Messiaen, he shared his conviction that sensual and believing love were not mutually exclusive, but complemented and enhanced each other as experiences.

ensemble cantissimo dedicates the second concert project to Johann Sebastian Bach and his Mass in B minor. It is a key work of music history, with its 26 movements more topical than ever after 250 years, a musical symbol of human existence, a work in the balance of great music and personal testimony of faith. The ensemble cantissimo will perform Bach's Mass in B minor together with the Swiss baroque orchestra le buisson prospérant and the author Robert Schneider (Sleeping brother) as a recitalist. He wrote his "Five Tropes" as short reflections on the Mass in B minor. They revolve around the themes of childhood, adulthood and becoming a child again and will be performed in Switzerland for the first time.

The solo parts will be cast from the orchestra's own ranks, as was customary in Bach's time. The baroque orchestra le buisson prospérant is made up of musicians who play in prominent positions in the Philharmonia Zurich opera orchestra, the baroque orchestras La Scintilla and Capriccio Basel, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and the Camerata Bern.

Concert dates

Happening, environment or simply outdoor music? It is no longer so easy to use these terms since people have been looking to cross boundaries and experiment with them. On the other hand, music has never been easy to reduce to a common denominator or even to a single point. It likes to elude us. Harmonic analyses only provide rudimentary impressions; adjectives commonly used in journalism are no more than approximations.

Anyone who visits the Rümlingen festival is bound to have some thoughts. This time there was another six-hour sound hike in the open air. Only it didn't start in Rümlingen and go to Sissach or Olten, but from little Lavin in the depths of eastern Switzerland: Scattered groups set off on their way to Sur d'Ardez. A constant companion along the way is the Inn, which rushes ostinato - and inspires festival directors and composers alike. On the banks of the river, the American Christian Wolff explores the sound of stones that he strikes against each other; at the next sound station, Jürg Kienberger and Peter Conradin Zumthor play on glasses filled with water by a stream. After such rather esoteric and anthroposophical sounds, the path leads into a stone tunnel. Fingal's Grotto from the Hebrides by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy briefly comes to mind. However, there is no orchestra in the cave-like tunnel, but a harpist whose subtly bowed or dabbed sounds come from the German composer Caspar Johannes Walter. "The water," says Walter, "is the hinge to nature." Drip sounds come from the loudspeakers surrounding the harp. They are processed, sounding at different pitches and rhythms. Despite the damp and cold, people like to linger a little longer in the dark - knowing full well that the sun will soon warm up again.

Continue on. Out of the tunnel, continue on the gravel path heading east. A sign reads "Carola Bauckholt: Double exposure". Looking to the right, we see a violinist standing somewhat lost among the trees. Hanging around her are other violins, from which - stimulated by so-called "transducers" - come bird calls. In view of her duplication of nature, Bauckholt had some scruples. Ultimately, however, such arrangements show that an "artistic-civilizational intervention" always sets different accents than "nature itself". Even if it is "only" through the fact that such an accomplished violinist as Akiko Sabine Ahrendt can imitate birds with incredible virtuosity in the highest regions of her instrument.

Of course, it is also the darker side of the concert hall that comes to mind between Lavin and Sur d'Ardez. The atmosphere between the sound stations is very informal. People talk about what they have heard, are inspired by the imposing high mountains or by sounds that reveal their subtle sides. Daniel Ott "hates it when the audience is suggested a freedom that they are not allowed to use". This time, the Swiss festival director and composer himself contributed a sound station called Chavorgia with. Wind instruments, primarily from Musica Concordia Ardez, play a few selected chords on a forest slope, while a duet with accordion and clarinet intones beautiful cantilenas. Ott was inspired by the structure of a poem by the Lavin-based writer Leta Semadeni. The total number of syllables in the short poem Chavorgia He transfers this to the large-scale form of his successful musical environment, which is perhaps more like outdoor music after all.

Beat Furrer also sets Leta Semadeni's poetry to music. In the small village church in Sur en d'Ardez, soprano Rinnat Moriah sings beguilingly beautifully, accompanied by the fantastic saxophonist Markus Weiss with both expressiveness and flexibility. Semadeni's natural mysticism develops incredible power, which unfolds well in the sparse church space. In mia vita da vuolp - In my life as a fox is the title of the poem in which the poet writes: "I didn't know my name, was only always there where my paw touched the earth." Now man is not a fox. But he can learn something from him - by simply strolling around, far away from concepts, far away from the constant question of why.
 

Wind players primarily from Musica Concordia Ardez in Daniel Ott's "Chavorgia"

The study revealed that around half of the competition participants surveyed are currently working in a music-related profession - some are employed and some are freelancers. Of this half, 40 percent work as freelance professional musicians. Twenty percent play in orchestras and 30 percent work as freelance music teachers. The other half of respondents, who do not have a direct music-related profession, work in administrative, social, educational, medical or technical/scientific fields, for example.

75% of those surveyed said that the competition had a consistently positive influence on their musical development. Only 3 percent reported negative experiences. Above all, the acquisition of soft skills, such as experience through performance, competition and examination training, as well as the acquisition of discipline and perseverance, were positively emphasized by the respondents.

More info:
https://www.uni-paderborn.de/nachricht/91018

As part of the Lucerne International Music Festival, the forerunner of today's Lucerne Festival, master classes for particularly talented musicians were established in 1943. Until 2003, important artistic personalities came to Lucerne every summer, such as the pianists Edwin Fischer and Géza Anda, the violinists Carl Flesch and Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the cellist Enrico Mainardi and the singer Franziska Martienssen-Lohmann. They and many others taught an international group of students on the premises of the conservatory and passed on their knowledge to the younger generation.

Although some of the masterclasses are well documented, there has been no detailed documentation of the masterclasses to date. For this reason, David Koch, music researcher at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, has comprehensively investigated and archived the history of the masterclasses in Lucerne. Among other things, he explored the question of how the spirit of the times shaped the event and how and through which key personalities the institution has influenced the music scene in the city of Lucerne over the years, as well as its perception and charisma.
 

"The Lucerne Masterclasses are a real success story. Looking back, they are undoubtedly among the most renowned of their kind in Europe," says David Koch. The world elite in attendance at the Music Festival Weeks has made it possible for around 350 masterclasses to take place each year with up to 200 participants, mainly in piano, violin, cello and singing. "The list of lecturers includes almost a hundred names who have often maintained a close relationship with the city and the conservatory beyond the Music Festival Weeks," says Koch. "This is another reason why Lucerne still enjoys a reputation as a world-class city of music."

Although the masterclasses in their former form are now history, the idea lives on as part of the Lucerne Festival Academy. Classes for composition and conducting take place every summer, as well as master classes for piano as part of the Piano Festival and in collaboration with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

The results of David Koch's two-year research project have been published in the series "Lucerne through the ages", which is managed by the Lucerne City Archives.
 

There was a lot going on in the contemporary music scene that weekend in mid-September; you could have visited the Rümlingen Festival, Zeiträume Basel and the Bern Music Festival at the same time. It was particularly annoying that both Basel and Bern offered a Luigi Nono focus. "The festival in Bern was planned a week earlier", comments Managing Director Andri Probst on the unfortunate overlap, "but the reopening of the Casino Bern took place on that date, so we had to make way for it."

The Bern Music Festival is supported by numerous Bernese institutions and ensembles from the field of classical music and related areas. This common umbrella gives more weight to experimental organizers in particular, and one theme ensures unity: after "Irrlicht" and "unzeitig", this time it was "rauschen". The festival takes place annually and offers an almost unmanageable wealth of concerts, performances, workshops, public rehearsals and talks. "Projects can be submitted according to the theme. A board of trustees consisting of Daniel Glaus, Susanne Huber, Thomas Meyer and Martin Schütz then selects the entries," says Andri Probst, describing the programming process.

The aim is to break out of the usual concert patterns: closer to the audience, more open to experimentation. Flexibility is the keyword, and it applies equally to the performers and the audience, who rarely know what to expect.

To really get involved in the "Rauschen", you also had to bring a lot of time with you this year. This was also the case on Thursday, when a concert with Helena Winkelman (violin) and Irina Ungureanu (soprano) was scheduled for midday at the Zentrum Paul Klee. Nadir Vassena, Helena Winkelman and Alfred Zimmerlin had each been commissioned to compose a piece based on a painting by Paul Klee. On a small format, Klee has set the ancient Chinese poem To the sound of water and drums "composed" together in colors, shapes and letters. An exciting starting point, which the three composers approached in very different ways.

Nadir Vassena places the noise, the quiet meandering and groping forward with violin harmonics and piano-breathed fragments of words in the singing voice at the center. Helena Winkelman is completely different, jumping into the work as it were, conquering rhythmic and colorful fields by grouping the music around words such as "Trommel" or "Glückes Lust!": a piece with rough edges and yet a propulsive drive - interpreted in a captivating way. Alfred Zimmerlin then extroverted: The poem is powerfully recited once through, accompanied by an electronically generated rhythm that soon turns into noise and destroys the "live music". Between the works, Christian Grüny philosophized about Klee's text and image structure. It was an exciting, demanding hour that challenged the ears and mind to the utmost.

Afterwards, we went to two installations at the Dampfzentrale. The Bernese know the location, but visitors from out of town had to find their way around, as there was no description in the program. There you were greeted by 189 cardboard boxes hung close together, which moved thanks to 42 motors. The sculpture created by Zimoun (*1977) rustled, murmured and rumbled incessantly and quietly: an industrial hall with a meditative charm that even children couldn't resist. A school class listened to the unusual sounds under the guidance of Tobias Reber.

Photo: SMZ

Zimoun's rustling cardboard wall:

42 prepared dc-motors, 189 cardboard boxes 35x35x35 cm

Before installation Out there by Werner Hasler (composition) and Hugo Ryser (scenography and projection), Reber warned: "It's going to be very loud." He was not understating the electronic "noise bombardment". Six screens were set up in a circle in the dark room, with the wave patterns projected onto them further confusing the senses.

The only thing left to do was to flee, back to Paul Klee, where an education project was waiting: In Noise censored 120 schoolchildren learned how to "really rustle" with everyday objects under the guidance of Mirco Huser and Tim Reichen. Arranged around the audience in the room, they scraped wildly for forty minutes with plastic bottles, brushes and plastic bags, stomping and the like. At one point, a "one-two-cha-cha-cha" could be heard - otherwise a lot of chaos and an imposition for the audience.

Everyone was looking forward to the concert in the cathedral that evening: Christina Daletska, the Gabrielichor Bern and the Vokalensemble Zürich under the direction of Andreas Reize and Peter Siegwart transported listeners into a wonderful world of sound. In works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Luigi Nono and Gabrielle Brunner, a "spatial music" typical of Venice unfolded. At the center La fabbrica illuminata (1964) and Breathing clarity (1980-83) by Luigi Nono, to whom the festival paid tribute. The successful conclusion to a heterogeneous day full of experimental adventures.
 

In times of declining volunteer commitment, it is not a matter of course that choir directors, trainers, club leaders and, last but not least, singers gathered in Hanover for four days in September to discuss issues relating to choral work. While many of the 180 or so workshops focused on choir-specific topics (pop choir conducting, children's choir work, complete vocal technique, stand-up composing, reading sessions on new literature), a surprisingly large number of working groups asked questions about club and association work. For example, the German Choral Youth discussed clever lobbying for their own cause: in many places, public support is undisputed, but is not (yet) accompanied by anywhere near sufficient financial support - despite the mantra-like repetition of the words "social cohesion" that associations offer with their cultural work.

Theo Geissler, publisher of the New Music Newspaper NMZasked: "Can the choir conductors still be helped?" In the panel discussion with this title, with Kevin Breitbach from the International Choir Conductors' Association and Nelli Holzki from the Swabian Choir Association, among others, increased efforts were called for from the sponsoring organizations. The diverse management and educational tasks would have to be shouldered jointly and - where necessary - mandates for large projects would have to be awarded externally.

In the lively and serious debates, it became clear time and again that the next generation has long been at work and is ready to take over the existing, sometimes outdated structures and enrich them with contemporary ideas and communication.

The more than 10,000 concertgoers were spoiled for choice; 35 events were scheduled over four evenings in churches and halls throughout the city. The opening evening already showed the range of vocal music-making: a classical motet program by the NDR Radio Choir (conducted by Klaas Stok) with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms enchanted the audience in the Neustädter Hof- und Stadtkirche and left only the wish that people would always come together to perform this music. Meanwhile, in the Theater am Aegi, Maybebop and Unduzo showed how entertaining a cappella pop can be in a highly musical way.

The members of the youth choir of the Hanover University of Music and Drama and the girls' choir of the Berlin Sing-Akademie had prepared a curiosity. Under the expert direction of Friederike Stahmer, they performed "Alterssünde" The donkey's shadow by Richard Strauss, a forgotten youth opera by the composer for his grandson, who was worried about his promotion at the grammar school in Ettal and tried to appease the principal with it.

For the first time, the local choral scene was represented by a stand of the Swiss Choral Association. At the freely accessible forum in the Congress Centrum Hannover, opportunities to exchange ideas with Swiss (youth) choirs, work opportunities as a choir director and choral literature were particularly in demand; thankfully, a collection of current Swiss choral compositions and arrangements compiled by Johannes Meister was available.

"chor.com is a unique platform where the choral scene comes together in all its diversity. People come together, exchange ideas and learn from each other. chor.com is a hub and signpost for the growing international vocal music scene. It has an impact on our society and as a format is as great as it is indispensable," emphasized Christian Wulff, President of the German Choral Association.

The current Vice President Kathrin Martelli will take over the presidency of the ZKO Board of Directors.

Lena-Catharina Schneider, who comes from northern Germany, was responsible for the artistic planning of the renowned Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival for six years. Since the beginning of this year, she has headed the ZKO's artistic operations office.

Helene Eller comes from Innsbruck and was previously a lecturer in accounting and controlling in the ZHAW's Bachelor's and Master's programs. As a hobby musician, the finance specialist with a doctorate has a strong affinity for music. The two co-heads will take up their posts on October 1.

At the same time, the current Vice President of the ZKO, Kathrin Martelli, will take over as President of the Board of Directors. She succeeds Thomas Bahc, who is stepping down for professional reasons. The Board would like to thank Thomas Bahc and the outgoing Artistic Director Michael Bühler for their dedicated and successful work at the ZKO.
 

The canton of Uri is skeptical with regard to the claim that the cultural message "in principle has no financial or personnel impact on the cantons and municipalities". It should be borne in mind that programs are to be initiated for which no financial framework has been defined and which for this reason "have a foreseeable financial impact on the cantons and cities". As an example, he mentions artist fees as well as start-up funding for the promotion of talented musicians.

The financing of the start-up projects of the previous cultural message and the new pilot projects of the Confederation are limited in time, which means that the responsibility for their continuation is "implicitly transferred to other bodies and thus to the cantons and municipalities".

In the area of folk culture, the cultural message refrains from "developing new ideas or increasing funding", the canton of Uri continues. The canton itself is heavily involved in researching, collecting and developing folk culture, for example with the House of Folk Music in Altdorf, the Alpentöne Festival and the Folk Music Festival.

In its cultural message, however, the federal government continues to ignore "the fundamental value of living folk culture for cultural participation and cultural life in Switzerland".

The entire statement:
https://www.ur.ch/_docn/187972/Vernehmlassungsantwort.pdf