Michael Haefliger, who has directed the Lucerne Festival since 1999, has decided not to extend his contract, which runs until the end of 2025. At the end of 2025, he will have held the post for 26 years.

The Board of Trustees has appointed a search committee to find a successor. This is made up of the members of the Foundation Board Markus Hongler (President), Christian Casal, Christoph Franz, Government Councillor Marcel Schwerzmann and Anne Schwöbel as well as Elisabeth Sobotka, Director of the Bregenz Festival, and Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The Board of Trustees plans to decide and announce Michael Haefliger's successor by the fourth quarter of 2023.

Michael Haefliger, who has directed the Lucerne Festival since 1999, has decided not to extend his contract, which runs until the end of 2025. At the end of 2025, he will have held the post for 26 years.

The Board of Trustees has appointed a search committee to find a successor. This is made up of the members of the Foundation Board Markus Hongler (President), Christian Casal, Christoph Franz, Government Councillor Marcel Schwerzmann and Anne Schwöbel as well as Elisabeth Sobotka, Director of the Bregenz Festival, and Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The Board of Trustees plans to decide and announce Michael Haefliger's successor by the fourth quarter of 2023.

Second prize went to the Trio Chagall and third to the Trio Zeitgeist, all from the FHNW. The Helix Trio from the FHNW, the Quatuor Amapola from the HEM and the Opus Five Quintet from the FHNW also received awards. 18 ensembles presented themselves.

The winners will perform at the Swiss Chamber Music Festival Adelboden next year, which will focus on the Orpheus winners (September 8 to 17, 2023). Individual ensembles will also have the opportunity to perform at the Musikdorf Ernen festival, the Zurich Guild Concerts and the Piano Trio Festival in Bern.

In addition to the opportunity to perform, the top three winners will receive prizes of 5000, 3000 and 2000 Swiss francs and the opportunity to commission a new Swiss composer, financed by the Pro Helvetia cultural foundation, whose work will be premiered at the Adelboden festival.

When the Swiss violin making school in Brienz was extended, two showrooms were planned. One room shows the recently opened permanent exhibition on violin making and violin playing in Switzerland, the other the development of a violin, in-house stringed instruments as proof of performance and documents the eventful history of the violin making school founded in 1944.

Admittedly: The new violin museum is small, with around twenty exhibits. Hikers walking from Brienz railroad station along the lake towards the church who want to get an idea of the Swiss violin can gain an overview in ten minutes. However, those who take the time to read the text panels and all the information available via monitors in the form of images, spoken word and musical examples will be rewarded with an originally presented, multifaceted history of the Swiss violin.

The theme "Of fiddles and master violins" can already be illustrated in Switzerland with exhibits from the late 17th century. In Oberbalm near Bern between 1685 and 1699, the carpenter Hans Krouchdaler made stringed instruments decorated with geometric and plant ornaments in the style of the Alemannic school from the Black Forest. He is considered to be one of the oldest violin makers north of the Alps. The tenor violin from 1699, a magnificent testimony to old craftsmanship, was probably played in a municipal Collegium musicum. This artistic instrument, carefully restored by Hans-Rudolf Hösli, the former director of the violin-making school, is juxtaposed with a sooty peasant fiddle from Bellwald (Goms) made by the player himself or by a local carpenter. It also dates back to the 17th century and is reminiscent of "runaway" musicians who often played for dancing, which was often forbidden.

The tension between folk and art music can also be observed in 19th century violin making. Aloys Suter (1809-1892) from Muotathal made violins for folk musicians, was involved in the development of the Glarus zither and emigrated to America in 1879 in the hope of a better life. In Newark near New York, he founded a store for musical instruments, which flourished until the early 20th century.

This daring autodidact from the canton of Schwyz was contrasted by foreign violin makers who settled in Swiss cities. The experimental Eastern Frenchman François Marie Pupunat (1802-1868) opened a workshop in Lausanne, Giuseppe Fiorini (1861-1934) from Bologna made his fortune in Zurich and August Meinel (1868-1961) came to Basel from Markneukirchen. In 1915, the Italian succeeded in acquiring drawings, inner molds and all the tools from the estate of Antonio Stradivari, who had died in 1648, and in this way introduced Cremonese violin making to Switzerland. The violin maker from the Vogtland region, however, brought the experience of the string instrument makers from the musical corner to Switzerland and also supported the amateur and wind orchestras in Basel as a horn player and conductor. Among the Swiss who learned violin making abroad was Gustav Methfessel (1839-1910) from Bern, son of the cellist and composer Adolph Methfessel, who completed his apprenticeship in Regensburg. He established himself as the first Bernese violin maker in his home town in 1864.

The rich sound bar presents an astonishing selection of Swiss compositions for string instruments from the 18th to the 20th century and reveals the musical knowledge of the current director of the violin making school, Olivier Krieger, a long-time orchestral musician and violin maker. Swiss violin music of all kinds is available in 20 audio samples: folksy solo dances from Graubünden, old and new Appenzell string music, a sonata movement by Gaspard Fritz from Geneva, string quartets by Joachim Raff, Hermann Suter, Fritz Brun, Fritz Voegelin and Roland Moser, solo pieces by Walter Courvoisier, movements from violin concertos by Othmar Schoeck, Willy Burkhard, Caspar Diethelm and Robert Oboussier, string ensembles by Frank Martin and Heinz Holliger and cello music by Arthur Honegger and Hans Huber.

In addition to internationally acclaimed violin soloists, who have been enchanting Swiss concert audiences in urban centers and at Alpine music festivals for over a hundred years, the silent cultivation of the violin in the Grisons Safiental (Surselva) is also presented. As early as the 19th century, the boys of the individual farmsteads were taught violin making and playing by far-sighted teachers. One of the surviving dance manuscripts is on display in Brienz.

The new exhibition at the Swiss violin making school provides a lot of inspiration. Perhaps it will also help to raise the cultural treasure from the Safiental.

This book, which was previously only available in Italian, illustrates the most important tools for finding patrons and philanthropists and offers useful tips for solving philanthropic tasks in a targeted manner. It shows step by step how to find the right patrons for a project and how to create the optimal framework conditions to start and positively shape a collaboration with them.

Generosity in dialog was written for all those who can benefit from patronage, for philanthropy specialists, communications professionals, marketing experts, employees of non-profit organizations, artists and cultural workers, but also students and people who are naturally generously committed to the common good.

Elisa Bortoluzzi Dubach, Chiara Tinonin: Grosszügigkeit im Dialog, Der Leitfaden für die Zusammenarbeit mit Mäzenen und Philanthropen, 200 pages, Fr. 29.00, Haupt, Bern 2022, ISBN 978-3-258-08284-4

Marco Liembd left his first mark on Lucerne's cultural landscape as a singer in the band "The Unborn Chikken Voices", according to a statement from the canton. In 2001, he switched to the radio microphone, working as head of music at Radio 3FACH and later at "Sounds" on Radio SRF 3.

From 2010, Liembd was Head of Music at Radio Pilatus and was responsible for providing listeners with national and international sound. After a two-year stint at Lucerne's multi-genre venue Südpol, Liembd has been Managing Director of Konzerthaus Schüür since 2016.

Every year, the Cultural Promotion Commission awards the Cultural Promotion Prize to individuals who have made a special contribution to the cultural life of the Canton of Lucerne through their work, their activities or in some other way.

The four other nominees are the SWR Big Band (with John Beasley and Magnus Lindgren), the WDR Big Band (with Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez and Ronnie Cuber) as well as the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra (with Steven Feifke, Bijon Watson) and Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly Of Shadows. This means that ensembles from Switzerland and Germany are in the majority among the nominees.

The Jazzaar Festival was founded by Fritz Renold and Helen Savari in the 1990s. It offers musically talented young people from Aargau the opportunity to play alongside international jazz luminaries, particularly from the USA.

Link to the picture

The cantonal operating contribution to the Lucerne Festival currently amounts to CHF 1.168 million and is to be increased to CHF 2.298 million by 2026. To increase the subsidy from the Canton of Lucerne, its contribution to the Zweckverband Grosse Kulturbetriebe will be gradually increased by CHF 660,000 from 2023.

With the planned artistic reorientation, the Lucerne Festival Foundation is opening itself up to "innovations in the international cultural sector", according to the canton's press release. The new formats are not only aimed at the public in the summer, but also throughout the year.

The Cantonal Council's Education, Training and Culture Committee (EBKK) also discussed the message submitted by the cantonal government on the reorganization of regional cultural funding. The EBKK misses the fact that the cantonal structural support of regionally important cultural institutions is regulated. It requested by a large majority that the dispatch be rejected and demanded that the cantonal government prepare the project and structural funding as a complete package for political consultation.

With the requested rejection, a majority of the committee is calling on the cantonal government to draw up a cantonal regulation and co-financing of regional structural support in accordance with the working and steering group's review mandate.
 

The aim of the report "Dignity at work 2: Discrimination in the music sector" was to document the cultural change in the music industry since 2018. In fact, two thirds of respondents stated that they had experienced discrimination in the workplace, 70 percent of them in the past five years. This represents an increase of almost half. Four-fifths of discrimination affected women.

According to the study team, the results suggest that discrimination is often used as a means of maintaining power and control over others, especially younger women seeking to advance their careers. Three quarters of the discriminators were people with seniority or opinion leaders, just under half were colleagues and a quarter were third parties (the public, customers and so on).

Incidents are not reported because those affected believe that such behavior is an integral part of the industry culture, because there is no office that would accept such reports or because there is a fear of losing one's job.

Link to the study:
https://www.ism.org/images/files/ISM-Dignity-2-report.pdf

Every two years, a composition competition is held as part of the Concours de Genève, which continues to enjoy a high international reputation despite the strong competition. This competition continues the tradition of the Prix International de Composition Musicale, which was established in 1959 by the Fondation Reine Marie José and is also financially supported by the latter.

97 candidates between the ages of 18 and 39 from 37 countries submitted their works for this year's edition. The requirement was a 15 to 20-minute work for a six-member vocal ensemble consisting of bass, baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, soprano and high soprano, whereby the mezzo-soprano could have been replaced by a countertenor. The use of electronics was also permitted under certain conditions.

As always, a high-caliber jury was engaged, this time consisting of the jury president Beat Furrer as well as Hans Abrahamsen, Unsuk Chin, Stefano Gervasoni and Isabel Mundry. Although the jury's professional competence is beyond any doubt, one may wonder whether all trends in contemporary music were actually adequately represented. From June 20 to 22, the jury members met at the Fondation Bodmer in Cologny to select the three finalists from the huge number of works submitted. It remains to be seen whether it is actually possible to select the three best works without having heard them.

Nevertheless, the audience could still look forward to an exciting finale, as the Neue Vocalsolisten from Stuttgart, a world-renowned top ensemble for new music, could be won as performers for the concert with the three works on October 26. The finalists were Hungarian-born 1995 Ármin Cservenák with Madrigali, the Japanese of the same age Yuki Nakahashi with Settings and the 1994 born Shin Kim from South Korea with The Song of Oneiroiin which microphones were also used (electronics: David Poissonnier).

Madrigali by Ármin Cservenák is a four-movement composition on texts by Petrarch, Michelangelo and Giacinto Scelsi, which refers to Renaissance madrigals without quoting the compositions of the past. The music of the first and third parts is expressive, frequently interrupted by caesuras, dynamically very varied and utilizes the full range of the ensemble, while the other parts are composed in a more two-dimensional manner with cleverly used microtonality and noisy passages. The composer writes, Madrigali is a work about dreams and visions, dreaming is a state or place where the unconscious opens up to us and allows us to get to know ourselves better, like an honest mirror.

Ármin Cservenák, who studies with Beat Furrer in Graz, was awarded 3rd prize and the audience prize for his differentiated work, which in certain passages is reminiscent of role models such as Salvatore Sciarrino.

Settings by Yuki Nakahashi, in some passages stylistically not so far removed from the first work of the evening, is overall a rather introverted piece in eight parts. The composer uses texts, structures and compositional techniques from cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, which are contrasted and overlaid by noisy sections. Many biblical animals populate the score, for example the bleating of the abandoned sheep can be heard almost naively. The fact that Yuki Nakahashi, who studied in Japan and Paris with Stefano Gervasoni, among others, also wrote the chorale Enough is enough! is no longer particularly original after the shattering effect this quote has in Alban Berg's Violin Concerto. The jury awarded the Japanese composer 2nd prize, and he also received no less than three special prizes.

The Song of Oneiroi does not set a text to music, but is based on the different timbres of syllables in different languages. In Greek mythology, the embodiment of dreams was called "Oneiroi". Shin Kim is a self-confident young composer who knows how to skillfully use all the ingredients for a successful piece. His work, a veritable tour de force, was clearly the most effective of the concert, with the use of microphones, clapping, stomping and body percussion also making it the most versatile in terms of sound. The composer obviously knows his way around contemporary vocal technique and does not shy away from dynamic extremes. Kim, who after studying in Seoul and Vienna is now studying with Rubens Askenar at the Royal Academy of Music in London, was awarded the first prize of 15,000 Swiss francs for his attractive work.

The three composers and the outstanding ensemble of soloists from Stuttgart were enthusiastically celebrated by the large audience in the magnificent Salle Franz Liszt of the Geneva Conservatoire.

On September 14, John Griffiths opened a meeting of the International Musicological Society Study Group "Tablature in Western Music" at the Basel Lute Days. Irina Döring then kicked things off with a discussion of not clearly interpretable spellings in the earliest surviving lute tablatures. In particular, she discussed the question of how certain sounds should be played together - arpeggiated, struck simultaneously, plucked with fingers or with a plectrum. Maria Christina Cleary's lecture took up a similar topic, but with reference to Spanish harp tablatures of the 16th century, in which, according to Cleary, intuitive playing gestures can also be found. Grzegorz Joachimiak then drew attention to the problem that some lute works have only survived in 20th century transcriptions, while the original sources were lost due to the war. He presented one example and discussed the circumstances of the transcription's creation. Hector Sequera then presented his observations on Robert Ballard's lute books. Sequera put forward the thesis that, in view of the profound changes in music at the beginning of the 17th century, the tablatures were virtually fossils and did not reflect the stylistic changes. However, an appropriate instrumental interpretation must take this into account. Sara Salloum also explored a practical performance question, dealing with unusually placed ornaments in the Margaret Board Lute Book was busy. She was able to convincingly demonstrate that the ornaments are related to the main notes of the mode of a piece. In his lecture, David Dolata compared the two editions of Vincenzo Galilei's teaching dialog Il Fronimowhich were published in 1568 and 1584 respectively. The later edition is extended by around 30 pages and deals with topics such as tunings, tastini, lutes with more than six choirs and reflects Galileo's intensive study of ancient music theory.

Finally, Victor Coelho presented a major new project for the lute world: the new edition of the Collected works of Francesco da Milano. The first complete edition, which was published in 1970 under the editorship of Arthur J. Ness, is naturally no longer up to date and justifies a new edition. Coelho gave a vivid account of the numerous problems that the new editors would now have to solve: Which pieces are really by Francesco, which are only attributed to him? How trustworthy are the individual sources? How do Italian sources differ from non-Italian sources? Which source should be given preference in the case of multiple traditions? And so on. Joshua Rifkin addressed very similar problems and questions in his lecture, albeit with reference to Josquin des Prez. There are also many uncertainties regarding the transmission of Josquin's works, and Rifkin noted that many musicologists tend to attribute pieces to famous composers such as Josquin, even when the sources are poor. In fact, however, Josquin's surviving oeuvre is probably much smaller than previously assumed.
(Ya'qub El-Khaled)

Two items on the program linked "old" music to current computer technology: Kateryna Schöning presented her new project "E-LAUTE: Electronic Linked, Annotated, and Unified Tablature Edition", which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). This is nothing less than a digital, freely accessible edition of the lute tablatures of the German-speaking world between 1450 and 1550, which will not only contain scans of the facsimiles and transcriptions in all standard tablature systems, but also practical performance information, audio recordings and additional texts. Schöning also gave an overview of her ongoing project "Tablatures and Humanism - Semantics of Maxims and Music in 16th Century Lute Tablatures" (funded by the FWF).

At the roundtable on "New Technologies and Practices for Tablature Encoding", Laurent Pugin (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales RISM), David Lewis (University of Oxford), Reinier de Valk and Tim Crawford (Goldsmith University of London) examined various aspects, opportunities and possibilities of digitization in the context of lute tablatures.
(Nicole Merkel)

The second event of the Basel Lute Days was the 2nd International Conference on Lute Study in Higher Education on September 15 and 16. At this conference, which focused on the rather limited field of higher education studies of lute instruments, no quick administrative solutions to the many pedagogical problems or direct influence on higher education policy structures could be expected. Rather, the lutenists, lute teachers, lute pedagogues and enthusiasts who came together from all over the world were interested in exchanging thoughts and ideas, making contacts and connecting the past of the lute with its future.

The first conference of this kind was held at Bremen University of the Arts in September 2019 and was a great success. Once again, the line-up of speakers was international and prominent and the audience was very interested. And once again, the lectures covered a wide range of topics relating to the higher education of young lutenists. After welcoming remarks by Stephan Schmidt, Director of the University of Music of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW)Martin Kirnbauer, Head of Research, Head of the Early Music Theory program, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) and Peter Croton (lecturer for lute SCB, president of the German Lute Society and organizer of the conference) Kelly Landerkin (SCB) gave in her opening speech Teaching Teachers: Early Music Pedagogy in the 21st century an interesting overview of the development of teaching methods over the past centuries and their impact on modern teaching.

University teaching historically ...

The following lectures dealt partly with topics directly related to university teaching: Marc Lewon, professor of medieval and early modern lute instruments at the SCB, looked back at the development of his subject under his predecessors Thomas Binkley, Ken Zuckerman and Crawford Young, and at the early attempts to reconstruct medieval plectrum lutes. He answered his questions "What do I do, why do I do it and what is expected of me?" with an overview of the relevant developments in music-historical research on repertoire and playing technique over the past decades. The knowledgeable audience looked with particular interest at the instruments he had brought with him, such as the citole, cetre and giterne.

... in Great Britain ...

Lynda Sayce, lutenist and professor of theorbo at the University of Birmingham, spoke about the many challenges of her work within the university structures at Bachelor's and Master's level in the UK. Both heterogeneous prior knowledge and access to study, expensive instruments and repertoire posed considerable problems for the students. The audience spontaneously took up Sayce's idea of compiling an anthology of teaching material for theorbo on an international basis.

... and socially critical

In her lecture, British lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, Professor of Lute at the Royal Academy of Music in London, addressed the problems of early modern song texts in performances of early music in the era of the cancel culture and me-too movements. How should an ensemble deal with the changed evaluation of the image of women, for example: contextualize, change, avoid? The past is like a foreign country where many things are done differently, but there are also pieces of music that can act as a bridge between the centuries.

Julian Behr, professor of lute at the SCB, presented his thoughts on basso continuo practice using the example of the so-called Carlo G manuscript for chitarrone from the early 17th century. Bass accompaniment is an important part of the training and later ensemble activity of lutenists. Behr interpreted the written-out bass parts in versions for organ and chitarrone as transitions between figured bass and intavolations.

The English lutenist Nigel North also passed on his wealth of experience: with the aid of his lute, he taught the basics and typical patterns of the melodic ornamentation important for improvisation and interpretation in early modern, especially English lute music, which has rarely been handed down in original sources.

Other lectures also offered specific instructions for studying the lute. For example, Peter Croton, who teaches lute and basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum, spoke about training for the baroque lute in the 21st century, illustrated with examples from his textbook. Sophisticated concerts require a great deal of theoretical knowledge based on historical sources. However, Croton felt that teaching lute instruments also needed to convey an understanding of rhetorical elements, phrasing, sound concepts, an anatomically sound posture when playing and efficient practicing techniques.

Paul O'Dette dedicated his lively presentation to the latter topic. The "Art of Practicing" consists of targeted problem solving. Enriched by numerous practical examples and tips, he was able to convince the audience that thoughtful and motivated practicing is not only indispensable and productive for beginners.

The lutenist and physiotherapist Jacob Heringman dedicated his lecture to another fundamental topic: he spoke about the great benefits of the ergonomically oriented technique developed by F. M. Alexander for lutenists too. It was clear from feedback from the audience that postural problems and chronic complaints are not uncommon and require early recognition and correction of movement sequences.

Research into old music prints and manuscripts and the study of original sources, it was emphasized once again, must be taught to students of early music as indispensable skills. These aspects were highlighted in the lectures by Andrea Damiani, Paul Breier and Catherine Liddell.

Andrea Damiani, professor of lute in Rome, gave a lecture on pieces of music by various composers from the collection of 17th century lute manuscripts from the Castelbarco Albani archive in Pesaro. The examples, attributed to Orazio and Malatesta Albani, presented by Damiani in their musical structure and later performed for the first time in a concert on the lute, were impressive in their complexity and beauty.

Paul Breier (Milan) analyzed the lute book by Vincenco Capirola, one of the most beautiful, colourfully illustrated and musically richest manuscripts of the early 16th century, with regard to its publication history by Capirola's pupil Vidal. Both Vidal's self-portrayal and the question of authorization of the manuscript by Capirola were discussed.

The lutenist and president of the Lute Society of America Catherine Liddell recorded the musical pieces for lute with allegorical titles in Denis Gaultier's Rhétorique des Dieux from the middle of the 17th century by presenting her thoughts on the connection between the titles and the musical structure of lute music.

All speakers (many of them graduates of the SCB) presented themselves in three well-attended concerts with a music-historically and stylistically wide-ranging repertoire on different lute instruments; some referred to their lecture topics.

Two round-table discussions also provided important food for thought: The extremely heterogeneous experiences and opportunities when studying the lute at European teaching institutions became clear in the discussion between the eight students and young graduates from six countries on the topic of "Studying the Lute from the Student's Perspective". The acquisition of knowledge about continuo playing was considered particularly important. Some were considering a future career in teaching. The concluding discussion round of the teachers on the progress and perspectives of university teaching for lute summarized suggestions from the past days and thoughts on the modern teacher-student relationship. Students, teachers, performers and non-professional lutenists alike were able to take away a wealth of new insights and suggestions for the benefit of the lute world from this very well-organized event.
(Sigrid Wirth)

The project of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, based at the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is part of the Academies' Program, which is currently the largest long-term research program in the humanities and cultural sciences in the Federal Republic of Germany, funded by the federal and state governments and coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

Now that all compositions by members of the Bach family of musicians have been catalogued as part of the third-party-funded Bach-Repertorium project between the Leipzig Bach Archive and the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Peter Wollny, Director of the Leipzig Bach Archive and project manager of the future Academy project, says that the focus will be on exploring, securing and evaluating the archival evidence.

Original article:
https://www.saw-leipzig.de/de/aktuelles/neuvorhaben-bewilligt-forschungsportal-bach

Mateusz Tomica, who comes from Poland, is studying Master Music Performance Classical Music at the Bern University of the Arts HKB. Instead of one first prize, the jury awarded two second prizes. Tomica also won the Mazurka Prize.

The jury for the 2022 competition consisted of: Kevin Kenner (USA, Chair), Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron (BUL/PL), Dina Yoffe (LET), Alexander Kobrin (USA), Christopher Elton (GB), Martin Kasik (CZ), Sabine Simon (D), Aleksandra Mikulska (PL/D).

Mateusz Tomica, who comes from Poland, is studying Master Music Performance Classical Music at the Bern University of the Arts HKB. Instead of one first prize, the jury awarded two second prizes. Tomica also won the Mazurka Prize.

The jury for the 2022 competition consisted of: Kevin Kenner (USA, Chair), Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron (BUL/PL), Dina Yoffe (LET), Alexander Kobrin (USA), Christopher Elton (GB), Martin Kasik (CZ), Sabine Simon (D), Aleksandra Mikulska (PL/D).

The previous budget has been doubled by the canton's Grand Council. According to the press release, this means that the number of supported record productions, tours and music videos can be massively increased. The increase in the "Business" area means that "musicians and agencies can be given more support in the areas of booking and management, thus creating a professional environment for the regional music scene".

Musikbüro Basel (previously Rockförderverein, later RFV) has been promoting the interests of popular music in the Basel region for almost 30 years. This not only in the scene but also at a political level. Most recently, Musikbüro Basel was part of the initiative committee for the successful tipping initiative. This success is now having a direct impact on the funding measures.