"Music initiative top or flop?"

The program was promising: The Association of Music Schools in the Canton of Schwyz (VMSZ) dedicated its annual training day on 29 October to the topic of 4 years after the referendum: "Music initiative TOP or FLOP?". Music school directors, music teachers, politicians, members of the authorities and other interested parties, particularly from local music associations, were invited. The new VMSZ President Matthias Bachmann welcomed over 80 attendees and Vice President Willy Odermatt paid tribute to former President Georg Hess, who passed away in June and had worked tirelessly until then, leaving a huge gap in the Schwyz music scene.

The presentation of this highly topical subject was organized by the VMSZ of the HERZKA GmbHInstitute for Organizational Development. Hector Herzig, "the father of the music initiative", as he was introduced by Bachmann, gave an introductory presentation entitled Music school through the ages and supervised the workshop National, cantonal and communal music school policy - What has the initiative achieved from a music school perspective and what measures need to be redefined? Liliane Girsberger led the second workshop Youth and Music Program - What impact does the program have on music schools and what measures need to be addressed? Fortunately, the conference concept spared the participants the agony of choice, and after a good half an hour they changed.

Hector Herzig

As usual, Hector Herzig explained the difficult situation of music teachers and music schools in the music education market, in which there are more and more competitors. He outlined the general situation in great detail using the keywords society, creativity, market, politics and education, always bearing in mind that learning to play an instrument today takes just as much time as it used to. As the music initiative has not yet achieved its goal (high-quality music lessons for children and young people), a federal framework law that recognizes music schools as educational institutions should be sought. He made an urgent appeal to get involved, take risks and make decisions.

Due to the lack of time, the specific explanations on Youth and Music (Y+M) were unfortunately too brief. As a result, the audience's level of knowledge about the programme remained very heterogeneous, which sometimes led to emotional discussions in the workshop on Y+M, in which the accusation that the training at Y+M corresponds to subsidized "Bädele" was difficult to classify correctly. However, all the facts about Y+M have long been available in the Federal Office of Culture's comprehensive handbook, which is available online: www.bak.admin.ch/jm/index.html?lang=de. Nevertheless, music school management and employee associations should carefully advise their employees and members on how the Y+M program can be meaningfully integrated into everyday teaching.

In the policy workshop, Herzig emphasized how important it is to anchor music schools as a type of school in cantonal legislation in order to position themselves as centers of excellence for music education. The association should tackle this process with determination together with the music associations - and together with the music teachers, whose commitment is also essential in political work.
Unfortunately, there was also not enough time at the end to discuss and prioritize the results of the workshops in the plenary session and to formulate measures from them, as was actually planned. However, the organizers will make up for this and make the material available internally at www.vmsz.ch.