The Basel Music Academy celebrates
The Musik-Akademie Basel is celebrating 150 years of eventful history. On February 8, 1867, it was founded as a general music school. The orchestra of the FHNW Academy of Music will kick off the anniversary year under the direction of Heinz Holliger.
The first vocational department was established in Basel in 1905 with the founding of the conservatory. Today, professionals are trained at the music academies of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and Hochschule für Musik. A cooperation agreement between the Academy of Music and the University of Applied Sciences regulates this collaboration.
Important personalities shaped the history of the institution: Paul Sacher founded the Schola Cantorum in 1933 and established historically informed performance practice. Max Adam's acoustics courses in the 1950s paved the way for the later founding of the Electronic Studio.
Master classes in composition and conducting courses by Pierre Boulez in the 1960s attracted numerous contemporary composers and performers to Basel, which subsequently developed into a center for new music. Bernhard Ley and his colleagues have paved the way for jazz as the latest development.
As the highlight of its anniversary year, the Musik-Akademie Basel is hosting a big celebration on September 23, 2017. In the exhibition "Tonkunst macht Schule" in the Vera Oeri Library, you can also discover further facets of its history from September.
The orchestra of the FHNW Academy of Music will kick off the anniversary year on February 25 under the direction of Heinz Holliger. Musica Profana", a commissioned composition by Rudolf Kelterborn, will be performed for the first time.
More info: www.musik-akademie.ch
