According to the festival's press release, the new program team is working on a very alpine and at the same time international festival. Sounds, tones and noises from the mountains - from singing cable car ropes to humming lakes and thundering rockfall to the rumbling of avalanches, the materiality of the Alps, so to speak - are the focus of the international festival.

In addition to concerts at Theater Uri, Cinema Leuzinger and Lehn (as well as a few other venues), the program includes spoken word contributions, films, installations and a conference on religiosity and music in the Alpine region. The festival will take place from August 17 to 20, 2023, with a sound walk as the finale.

Founded in 1999, the festival is not committed to any musical style. The theme is clear, but not the genre, which can best be characterized by the term "new folk music". The managing director is the former Pro Helvetia director Pius Knüsel.

According to the Camerata's press release, Raluca Matei took over the management of the orchestra in 2013. She was responsible for the conception and realization of the orchestra's successful 60th anniversary season. A change in strategy introduced by her with a focus on promoting contemporary Swiss music and performers also enabled a return to the founding ideas of Camerata Zurich.

She has also succeeded in developing new collaborations to network the orchestra in Zurich and beyond. In the area of music education, she recently launched a program for children and young people in collaboration with Cornelia Nick, which quickly met with a great response. The 50% position will be advertised from August 2022.

The future Studio for Electronic Music is to fulfill three main tasks: creative and excellent artistic production, teaching and mediation as well as scientific research. Accordingly, scholarship and residency programs, cooperation with the music and media universities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and opening up to the interested public are planned for the studio.

The space available at the center includes a rehearsal and concert hall for 150 people, a rehearsal and concert hall of 265 square meters for 130 people, a small rehearsal hall, foyers, offices, a coworking space for six people, guest rooms, practice rooms, storage rooms and the Studio for Electronic Music (SEM) including storage, workshop and staff rooms of 260 square meters.

WDR's Studio for Electronic Music, which opened in 1953, was initially headed by Herbert Eimert. His successor as artistic director of the studio was Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1963.

The current board members are Daniel Fueter, Roger Girod, Simone Keller and Philip Bartels, with Christoph Homberger acting as external advisor. We are now looking for patrons to donate or sponsor the education and accommodation of musically talented protégés from crisis regions. A solidarity committee with many well-known personalities supports the association's cause.

We, the department management, lecturers, students and staff of the HKB - Music as well as the orchestral musicians, management, office and board of the Musikkollegium Winterthur, are saddened and saddened to say goodbye to our valued colleague and colleague Daniele Galaverna, solo bassoonist of the Musikkollegium Winterthur and lecturer for bassoon and chamber music in the music department of the HKB.

In Daniele Galaverna, the Musikkollegium Winterthur and Bern University of the Arts have lost a wonderful, world-class musician, an empathetic teacher and an inspiring personality for all those who were able to benefit from his immense knowledge and passion for music. Thanks to Daniele Galaverna's mediation, many students at the university were able to gain orchestral experience at the Musikkollegium Winterthur, thus creating a link between our institutions. After a long and patiently endured illness, Daniele Galaverna left us far too soon. Daniele will be warmly remembered by us all. We will honor his memory.
 

Born in Zurich in 1989, violinist Edouard Mätzener has caused a sensation both as a soloist and in various combinations, writes the canton. He made his solo debut at the age of twelve at the Casino Basel with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Howard Griffiths. He went on to earn a Master of Music degree at Yale University and a Specialized Performance Soloist degree at the Hochschule in Basel.

As the second violinist in the Merel Quartet, Edouard Mätzener is a convincing, subtle musician who responds to his fellow musicians with precision and spontaneity. In addition to his passion for chamber music, as a founding member, violinist and composer he is the driving force behind the klezmer band Cheibe Balagan.

In the past, the authorities have encouraged people to retreat into their own four walls to combat the pandemic. If the general epidemiological situation continues to develop positively, the Culture Taskforce believes the time is ripe for a new message from the authorities: "Get off the sofa and get into the concert!" It is due to the complexity of the sector that culture will not be in balance for a long time yet, writes the Culture Taskforce on February 2. It continued: "Cultural professionals and cultural enterprises in Switzerland were not left alone by the federal government and cantons during the pandemic. The various measures have made a decisive contribution to ensuring that there has been no cultural lockdown so far. However, it would be fatal to believe that all support and compensation measures would no longer be needed once the restrictions were lifted."

However, as the transformation projects are hardly suitable for bringing about a general "revitalization" of culture due to their narrow specifications, the Culture Taskforce suggests a lower-threshold "Culture Restart Programme". The Federal Council program for the tourism industry or the "Neustart Kultur" program in Germany could serve as models.
 

Playing the piano requires complex planning: it is necessary to coordinate what is to be played, i.e. which note or chord is to follow, but also how it is to be played, i.e. which fingers exactly execute the touch. A team from the Max Planck Institutes for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main (MPIEA) and for Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (MPI CBS) has now investigated where exactly these planning steps take place in the brain.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) generates a strong magnetic field. In cooperation with Blüthner Pianofortemanufaktur in Leipzig, the team therefore developed a piano with 27 keys that can register the keystrokes via a light line.

On this special piano, 26 test subjects played pictorial chord sequences in the MRI scanner. This showed that the two planning steps "what" and "how" activate different brain networks. It was particularly noticeable that both networks include a frontal brain region that is of great importance in the planning of all everyday actions: the left lateral prefrontal cortex.

More info:
https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/institut/news/news-artikel/article/solo-und-duett.html

According to the biography on the Stiller Has website, Endo Anaconda was born in Burgdorf in 1955 to an Austrian mother and a Swiss policeman and spent the first part of his childhood in Biel. When he was five years old, his father was killed in an accident. At the age of twelve, he found himself in a boarding school in Klagenfurt (Carinthia) almost overnight. The family eventually emigrated there. However, Endo continued to spend his summer vacations with his grandparents in Emmental.

After an apprenticeship as a serigrapher in Vienna, the non-student was caught up in the aftermath of the student protests there. He returned to Switzerland in the early eighties and worked for two years as a forklift driver at Shoppyland Schönbühl. After this time, he screams his way through various unsuccessful projects without monitoring. In 1985 he is the singer of the band The alpinistswhich released a record on the Fata Morgana label in the same year.

In 1989, he founded the duo Stiller Has with Balts Nill (Ueli Balsiger). Endo has three children.
In recent years, he has also made a name for himself as a columnist.

The program is being launched together with the Department of Computer Science and is headed by Dragica Kahlina. According to Kahlina, the cooperation ensures the transfer of the latest research findings on digital transformation into teaching.

Basic skills are taught in the areas of digital development and data analysis - ranging from programming skills to the skillful use of software and applications for performance, teaching or research activities. On the other hand, the new course also offers potential for younger and rapidly growing areas such as composing and programming music for computer games or online applications.

More info:
https://www.hslu.ch/de-ch/hochschule-luzern/ueber-uns/medien/medienmitteilungen/2022/01/26/mm-music-and-digital-creation/

In summer 2019, the Office for Culture of the Canton of St.Gallen introduced an online solution for the submission and processing of applications, according to the canton's press release. This was done together with the regional funding organizations Südkultur, Rheintaler Kulturstiftung, Kultur Toggenburg, Thurkultur and KulturZürichseeLinth as well as the cultural departments of the cities of Rapperswil-Jona and Wil.

Since this year, the City of St.Gallen and the Cultural Foundation of the Canton of Thurgau have also been participating in this platform. This means that ten cultural funding agencies are currently connected to it. Once an application has been entered, it can be submitted to the selected cultural funding agencies with a single click. This makes it possible to apply for communal, regional and cantonal cultural funding in a single step, which is unique in Switzerland. The joint online form is now also integrated on the website of the City of St.Gallen's cultural funding agency and the Cultural Foundation of the Canton of Thurgau.

The applications, and after completion of the projects also the accounts, are sent to all participating funding organizations. The decision on funding contributions is made separately. The responsibilities and procedures differ depending on the amount of funding requested and the regional reference. Depending on the canton, the funding comes from the cantonal cultural funding budget of the general state budget, from the lottery fund or from the cultural funding budgets of the municipalities or the regional funding organizations.

More info:
https://www.sg.ch/news/sgch_allgemein/2022/01/digitalisierung-in-der-kulturfoerderung.html

According to a press release, those responsible are confident that this year's Jazzahead! at Messe Bremen can take place as planned, as a hybrid event that can be experienced live and online. In 2020, Jazzahead! could not take place at all due to the coronavirus pandemic, and last year it could only be held online.

The motto this year is therefore "Together again!" - finally together with Canada, a country that was already featured in the two previous years. On Friday, April 29, the fair will host the European Jazz Meeting, including four performances each from Spain and France, some of them with international line-ups. Switzerland will be represented by the group Ikarus.

In 1972, choirmaster Günter Graulich and his wife Waltraud Graulich founded the Carus publishing house and published the first edition of Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria in D RV 589 for choir and orchestra - the first scholarly-critical edition of this masterpiece. Today, the publisher's catalog includes around 45,000 works, mainly for vocal ensembles, as well as sheet music editions, books, CDs and apps. The edition of the Gloria has remained a bestseller in the Carus program.

The anniversary will be celebrated throughout 2022 with a wide range of activities. Highlights will be the festive concert in Stuttgart on June 3 with the Kammerchor Stuttgart under the direction of Frieder Bernius and a workshop week for choir conductors in the fall. In addition, commissioned compositions by John Høybye (Denmark) and Martín Palmeri (Argentina) will be premiered in the anniversary year.

Publisher and Managing Partner Johannes Graulich emphasizes the proximity to the performers: "Since the very beginning of Carus, we have sought out exchanges with choir conductors all over the world and closely aligned our program with the needs of the choirs." Managing Director Ester Petri adds: "Even though the pandemic has thwarted many of our plans for the future, we remain committed to continuously expanding our choral repertoire in terms of both depth and breadth. Our expertise and the new digital possibilities help us to offer choirs and conductors around the world the best possible service - from researching works to rehearsals and performances."

In addition to scores, Carus always offers performance material for all works. With over 750 piano reductions of sacred and secular choral works with orchestra, the Carus range is unrivaled. In addition to the Urtext editions, the Carus choir books are well established and have proven themselves as basic equipment for church choirs and chamber choirs. The music pedagogical publications support with the series chorissimo! vocal work from kindergarten to secondary school. The publishing house also produces selected works from the catalog on its own CD label. Leading artists publish their recordings with Carus. With carus musica practice app for choir members, was a great success for the publisher in 2015.

Carus is a family business and is managed by the Graulich publishing family. It is socially committed to the promotion of music-making in society. Singing with children is particularly close to its heart. With the song project, the publishing house has launched an important charity initiative (Lullabies / Christmas carols from all over the world).

May 27, 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of Joachim Raff's birth. He was one of the most frequently performed composers of the 19th century, was made an honorary member of the New York Philharmonic in 1872 alongside Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner and was mentioned in the same breath as Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy at the time.

The Joachim Raff Society (JRG) was founded at the end of October 1972 and the Joachim Raff Monument was inaugurated on the square of the same name in the lakeside grounds of Lachen. Since then, the JRG has developed remarkably. The society, which had 60 members at the time, has now grown to almost 250 participants. Its membership is international and extends as far as Japan. The aims of the association at that time are still valid today, and the sponsorship work is clearly bearing fruit. Not only has the wish for a public archive in Lachen, which was cherished from the outset, been fulfilled in 2018, but the society's other goals have also been realized in a significant way.

Around fifteen concerts are planned in Lachen and the surrounding area alone in 2022. The presence of the world-famous Gewandhaus choirs from Leipzig is outstanding. On May 26, the day before Raff's birthday, Lachen will be able to boast a concert that is unique in Switzerland. Raff's oratorio will be performed in Lachen's parish church End of the world - judgment - new world. The Gewandhaus is one of the most renowned concert halls in the world. Famous names such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who is regarded as the first important patron of Joachim Raff, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Kurt Masur, Herbert Blomstedt and Ricardo Chailly were all conductors of this orchestra, which was founded in 1743. The Gewandhaus Choir can also look back on a tradition of over 150 years. Their current director, Gregor Meyer, who has led them since 2007/08, will also conduct in Lachen. A CD recording is planned to capture this event.

Further concerts are planned with the Basler Madrigalisten, pianist Galina Vracheva, London-based Raff's best-known interpreter Tra Nguyen, musicologist and pianist Andrea Wiesli with her Trio Fontane, the local Symphony Orchestra of the Canton of Schwyz (SOKS), students from the Zurich University of the Arts and a young opera ensemble performing the opera The jealous ones as a Swiss premiere.

The JRG is involved in many other concerts in Germany, for example at Murten Classics, and abroad, e.g. in Munich, Weimar, Cologne, Salzburg, Dresden and Leipzig. There will be a world premiere in Weimar with the staged performance of Raff's Samsona musical tragedy in five acts. This operatic experience will take place on September 11 at the Deutsches Nationaltheater there.

The Lachner Verein also plans to participate in around ten recordings for electronic media. The Basel Madrigalists are recording sacred and secular a cappella works by Raff and the Central Switzerland Culture Prize winner Graziella Contratto is planning to record the never-before-performed music drama Samson in concert form. The aforementioned oratorio End of the world - judgment - new world will be available on CD. Various Swiss and foreign ensembles are releasing Raff works, some of which have never been recorded before. The famous Leipzig Quartet and the Swiss EnsembLesAlpes, which recently performed in Lachen, are devoting themselves to recordings of Raff's chamber music.

The largest musicological journal published in Germany, the Sound art, is celebrating with its own special issue on the composer from Lachen. Renowned national and international scholars will publish various essays and provide further insights into Raff's oeuvre. In addition, a new Schwyz magazine deals with the Swiss journeys that Raff undertook after his emigration to Germany. The integrated correspondence with his relatives should be particularly exciting. In many letters, he reports on his travel experiences of the emerging tourism in Switzerland in the 1850s. Much of what he experienced flowed into his piano compositions.

As the Joachim Raff Society will also be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022, it is publishing an anniversary publication on its work since 1972. Since then, the society has organized around 200 concerts and other events in Lachen and the surrounding area. Also in the Announcements of the Historical Society of the Canton of Schwyz an essay by Rapperswil historian Basil Vollenweider will deal with Raff's early years in Lachen and the surrounding area. It will be interesting to see what new insights are brought to light about Raff's work in his home community.

Furthermore, a scientific symposium is planned in Lachen in September, new editions of sheet music will be published and Yvonne Götte is curating an exhibition on the subject of "On the road with Joachim Raff in the Alpine region".

The Classical:next is back - at a new location: The international forum for classical and contemporary music invites the professional world to the expo, conferences and showcase program in the German trade fair city of Hanover from 17 to 20 May 2022.

The joint Swiss Music stand (Swiss Music is an initiative of Fondation Suisa and Pro Helvetia for the promotion of Swiss music at international events and on swissmusic.ch) will once again be available to Swiss participants free of charge as a domicile and networking platform at the trade fair. Registration via Swiss Music also enables accreditation at a discount of at least 50 euros and a free presence on swissmusic.ch.

This offer is sponsored by Fondation Suisa, Pro Helvetiathe Swiss Performers' Cooperative and Sonart - Musicians Switzerland.
 

Photo: Eric von Nieuwland

The Swiss Music stand at Classical:next

In-depth discussions are also possible.