For thirty years I have been looking for a book on "European" music history for students. Despite the wealth of stimulating thoughts and ideas ("critical imagination", p. 8), Gernot Gruber's Cultural history of European music unsuitable for my purpose. Here - despite plausible thoughts on the subject - music history is not told, but rather discussed. The fact that different epochs are dealt with from different perspectives is pragmatic and beneficial. Nevertheless, the range from mere referencing of what has been researched (music of the first millennium), complicated music-historiographical considerations (18th century) and mere name-dropping (again and again) is somewhat too broad.

The last of seven illustrations is on p. 77; there is not a single musical example. How does the author intend to fulfill the triad of "knowing, seeing and hearing" (p. 1)? It is not the composers' achievements and the beauties of music that shine here, but the historian's erudition. All too often, it takes considerable expertise to guess what the author is trying to imply with side comments. The German language sets him insurmountable traps with abstracting word endings such as -ung and -ation, instead of allowing musical performance to unfold as concretely as simply before the reader's mind's eye and ear. What is meant by "flexible structuring" and "condensation" for a composer (J. S. Bach) of whom not a single composition is used as an example for explanation? The naming of composers (and at most work titles) without a single comment on their music is particularly annoying.

If Swiss music from 1968 to 1991 is outlined with three names (Klaus Huber, Rudolf Kelterborn and Heinz Holliger), this is one-sided. If all that remains of the latter is "Heinz Holliger (*1939), world-famous as an oboist, was a professor at the Fribourg Academy of Music from 1975 and is still very influential as a conductor and composer in and for Switzerland today", then this is meaningless, only partially correct and therefore unsuitable within a "[...] history of [...] music".

My starting point was a specific question; the answer is negative. As a reviewer, I am interested in the orientation, the concept and its implementation. This does not mean that the book cannot be read with profit as a source of information. The author understands how to make new and unfamiliar references clear and how to use his wealth of knowledge to provoke a new way of thinking about music history.

Gernot Gruber: Cultural history of European music. From the beginnings to the present, 832 p., € 49.99, Bärenreiter/Metzler, Kassel/Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-7618-2508-2

Under the motto "beastly!", four museums in Basel are joining forces for a wide-ranging exploration of the animal world in many cultures. In addition to the Basel Museum of Antiquities and the Ludwig Collection (Animals and hybrid creatures in antiquity), the Pharmacy Museum of the University of Basel (From animal to active ingredient) and the Museum der Kulturen Basel (No culture without animals), the Music Museum of the Basel Historical Museum is also taking part in this major project. Its exhibition in the rooms of the former Lohnhof remand prison bears the ambiguous title The sound of the animals. It applies to music produced by animals themselves as well as music produced by humans with animal materials.

While the first part brings together all kinds of songbirds to make music, the second shows just as impressively how much animal substance there is in musical instruments.

The 16 multimedia stations not only tell you a lot about whale song, animals in classical music and the sound of natural horns, but also about bizarre things. For example, the historical bird organ "Serinette", whose name is derived from the siskin (French: serin), is commented on (editor's note: see article Le serinage des oiseaux by Laurent Mettraux in SMZ 1/2019, p. 16). It was used to teach certain melodies to a songbird trapped in a cage. To encourage birds to sing in general, a recorder called a bird flageolet was used. Of course, there is no lack of animals making music or dancing in the children's room, as numerous exhibits are specially designed for children. The favorite animals in children's songs can be found in small caves.

Animal materials in the musical environment are presented in the greatest detail. It is hard to believe what it took to produce a shellac record: 12,600 Asian lacquer shield lice, tiny creatures barely a millimeter in size, supplied their secretions to produce 15 percent of the shellac used in this historic sound carrier. Less lousy, but still alarmingly large, are the sacrifices required of animals in the production of strings. Twelve thin violin E strings require 29 meters of animal intestine, while a thick double bass string requires the intestines of eight sheep.

Little is known about the profession of parchment maker; unusual things can be seen, such as animal intestines preserved in a jar, a tension frame for the production of strings, mother-of-pearl on a harmonica, tortoiseshell on various instruments and all kinds of animal skins. A vegan Basel drum constructed especially for the exhibition from artificial materials raises hopes of a long overdue reduction in animal raw materials. With this object at the latest, the exhibition encourages visitors to think about animal rights and a new awareness of materials.

The oldest exhibit is a Roman flute made from dog bones in Augusta Raurica between 70 and 110 AD. It is not known whether another one made from crane bones produced a more sangable sound, but the amount of ponytail hair needed to string a string bow - around 170 - is a considerable number.

After depressing information about the ivory trade in favor of piano keys and other animal suffering, the last prison cell seems like a cheerful stroke of liberation. Specially designed for children, the colorful room is the final highlight of the exhibition from an aesthetic point of view. The walls are papered with enlargements of sheet music, the title pages of which were designed by renowned artists and graphic designers such as Pierre Bonnard, Clérisse Frères, Fritz Erler and Willy Herzig. The sound of animals in piano pieces, songs, fashionable dances and pop songs from the 1920s unfolds in a muted but artistically polyphonic manner. Among the composers, Reger and Tchaikovsky, Bartók and Benatzky, Jacques Ibert and Richard Strauss stand out. The title pages from the private collection of the Basel graphic artist Jacques Hauser for compositions about a wide variety of animal species call out for a sonic realization. The fringe events each revolve around an "animal of the month". It is hoped that the lectures planned until summer 2022 will be followed by corresponding concerts. (www.hmb.ch).

Isabel Münzner and Anne Hasselmann, in collaboration with the equally imaginative designer Manuela Frey, have curated this extremely informative exhibition with a strong focus on Basel loans and a keen awareness of the environment.

Guided tours and workshops are offered for schools. A dossier for teachers also contains introductions to the topics and questions to be answered in the exhibition. The use of animals and their rights is also included. The accompanying publication, published jointly by all four museums, contains an article by Isabel Münzner, which focuses in particular on the controversial musicality of the animals and the whales' song.

The National Cultural Dialogue notes that the Covid support measures in place since March 2020 have proven their worth in the cultural sector. To date, a total of over 23,000 applications have been approved and CHF 420 million paid out. The aim is to preserve Switzerland's cultural diversity, writes the Confederation in its press release.

The current legal basis for the Covid-19 cultural measures expires at the end of 2021. In the upcoming winter session, the Federal Parliament will decide on an extension of the cultural measures in the Covid-19 Act. Cantons, cities and municipalities support the Federal Council's proposal to extend the cultural provision in the Covid-19 Act until the end of 2022. The members of the Cultural Dialogue are also calling on the electorate to vote in favor of the amendment to the Covid-19 Act on November 28, 2021.

The National Cultural Dialogue also addressed challenges that already existed before the pandemic but have become even more important in recent months, such as the appropriate compensation of cultural professionals.

The National Cultural Dialogue was established in 2011 and brings together representatives of the political authorities and cultural representatives from the cantons, cities, municipalities and the federal government. Its work is based on an agreement from 2011 and a multi-year work program. The political authorities form the strategic steering body of the National Cultural Dialogue with the head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA), representatives of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), the Swiss Association of Cities (SSV) and the Swiss Association of Communes (SGV).

Born in Constance in 1961, Rapp studied historical keyboard instruments, musicology, philosophy and art history in Berlin. From 1990 to 1998, she was deputy director of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she returned as rector from 2005 to 2012. In between, she worked as chief dramaturge at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin. She has been Rector of the University of Music in Stuttgart since 2012.

The state-recognized Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin offers a Bachelor's degree course in music for talented young people, primarily from the Middle East and North Africa. The intensive course of study places a second focus on humanities and musicology subjects. In addition to the Bachelor's degree, an Artist Diploma can be obtained in all orchestral instrumental subjects as well as piano, composition and conducting. The Artist Diploma prepares aspiring musicians for a professional career.

Hodel's first term of office until 2008 was characterized by the introduction of Bachelor's and Master's degree courses, the so-called Bologna reform. It also included a far-reaching reorganization of the university, in which the then five autonomous sub-schools of Engineering & Architecture, Business, Social Work, Design & Art and Music were united under the umbrella of the "Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts" and services were centralized.

His return to Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in 2012 came at a challenging time, when the public sector had to make savings and Markus Hodel had to fight for funding contributions from the six cantons of Central Switzerland. He also gradually pushed ahead with the organizational and spatial integration of the university with the involvement of the entire university management.

A search committee headed by the University of Applied Sciences Council and comprising representatives of the Concordat Council, staff, students and university management will be formed to appoint Markus Hodel's successor. The position will be advertised publicly.

Original article:
https://www.hslu.ch/de-ch/hochschule-luzern/ueber-uns/medien/medienmitteilungen/2021/11/16/markus-hodel-gibt-die-leitung-der-hochschule-luzern-ende-2022-ab/

"Soon", rejoices the visitor as she catches sight of the Alte Reithalle in Aarau. "Soon" promises orchestral bliss in the new multi-disciplinary venue for music, theater, dance and modern circus. The Argovia Philharmonic will move in here 58 years after it was founded as a resident orchestra - and share the 2,000 square meters of flexibly usable space with the Aarau stage. This location lives from its past as a riding hall for the dragoon regiment of the Aarau army garrison, which the architects Barão-Hutter allude to by leaving the unadorned walls and roof beams as they are. The visitor has already heard a lot of good things about the acoustics designed by Martin Lachmann, so she is all the more eagerly awaiting the opening concert: the first program promises "New Paths" and offers Ludwig van Beethoven's 1st Piano Concerto with Aargau pianist Oliver Schnyder, Johannes Brahms' 1st Symphony and Daniel Schnyder's Argovia. Symphony No. 5 "Pastorale"a composition commissioned by the orchestra, which will be premiered in the Alte Reithalle.

With all this in mind, the visitor heads for the office of the Argovia Philharmonic on. This is the home of the new Artistic Director Simon Müller, who, after an eventful 2020/21 season, is planning the orchestra's artistic future with the Principal Conductor Rune Bergmann designed. The Norwegian made his debut in the middle of the pandemic, in the fall of 2020. After that, nothing worked for a while.

Because it did not want to lose contact with the audience, the Argovia Philharmonic streamed three concerts for the first time during this period - with success. "This addition to normal orchestral operations needs to be well planned in the future," says Simon Müller and mentions what is being considered: streaming concerts in Asia. "Rune Bergmann has a vision: he wants to take the Argovia Philharmonic out into the world because he sees a lot of potential in this orchestra. Marketing will play an important role in this context. But of course we primarily want to position ourselves even more strongly in Switzerland than before," emphasizes the artistic director: "We have also recently become a member of the orchestra association, even though we are a project orchestra." Simon Müller sums it up as follows: "For me, the Argovia Philharmonic is the orchestra on the edge of its seat", meaning: "Unlike symphony orchestras with annual contracts, even Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is not routine for the Argovia Philharmonic."

With the move to the Alte Reithalle, the orchestra now has an acoustically excellent home, where 40 days a year are scheduled for five subscription cycles, plus special events and chamber concerts. In contrast to the symphony concerts with their rectangular auditorium and rising stands, the audience sits on the sides of a small arena for these intimate events. "Once again, it's the overall experience that counts - the immediate proximity to the audience," says Müller. The orchestra also seeks this closeness on its side trips to Beinwil am See, Villmergen, Zofingen, Rheinfelden and Baden.

Baden is the orchestra's second home, so to speak. For 20 years, the Argovia Philharmonic played in the Trafo-Saal - in the vicinity of large cinemas. Now it will move to the Kurtheater, which has become a jewel thanks to a renovation and extension that is as expert as it is sensitive. The theater is not a genuine concert hall, but thanks to the new acoustic shell on the stage, the concert experience should be enjoyable. In any case, previous events by other orchestras in this pretty theater have shown that it is a great place to be: On both sides of the ramp, there is that crackling tension that belongs to a concert. The Argovia Philharmonic has big plans for the 2021/22 season, at the end of which it will release recordings on CD. Which ones? "The four Brahms symphonies that we previously recorded in our concerts," says Simon Müller. The opening concert will be broadcast by Radio SRF2 on December 9.

Then the time has come: the visitor sits in the new concert hall in the Alte Reithalle for the first time. It is separated from the theater by a slate-grey wall, has many rows of stalls and a grandstand that guarantees the best view. But how does the hall sound? Wonderful! As the first bars of Daniel Schnyder's alphorn and orchestra wittily mix many musical styles Argovia-There is no blurring in the reverberation; the sound is warm and has a transparency that has nothing to do with the analytical sharpness of other modern concert halls. Of course, chief conductor Rune Bergmann and the Aargau ensemble will still have to make some adjustments, but the opening shows what is meant by the "orchestra on the edge of its seat". The Argovia Philharmonic takes nothing for granted. That is why it unpacks everything it has always been able to do, but which can now really shine: String brilliance, excellent wind solos and a very unique, attentive listening to each other. It comes as no surprise that Oliver Schnyder is the icing on the cake of the opening. His interpretation of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 on a Bösendorfer literally bounces in the fast, finely balanced outer movements and has an intimacy in the Largo that one would love to preserve. In short: with its debut in the Alte Reithalle Aarau, the Argovia Philharmonic has made an emphatic statement in the Swiss orchestral landscape.

Okunew has combed through private and state archives and conducted dozens of interviews. The result is a pop-historical study of the emergence and development of a youth subculture that has received little attention to date: the heavy metal scene in the GDR. In the 1980s, it was viewed just as critically by state cultural policy as the punks. After all, young people were expected to dress "sophisticatedly", get involved in the FDJ and sing songs that would make them happy and strengthen their love for their socialist homeland.

However, many young people no longer felt that this appealed to them. They increasingly and openly turned to Western pop culture. AC/DC, Motörhead, Metallica and Slayer inspired young people. In the second half of the 1980s, the metal scene grew into what was probably the largest youth subculture in the GDR.

More info:
https://zzf-potsdam.de/de/presse/kutte-statt-blauhemd-neue-studie-erforscht-die-heavy-metal-szene-hinter-dem-eisernen
 

Born in 1963, Daniel Waser grew up in Bern and completed his training as a Bernese advocate. He has over 25 years of experience in the cultural sector with a national and European network. In particular, he built up the Zurich Film Foundation following a successful referendum in 2005. He headed the foundation for 14 years as managing director and successfully positioned regional film funding as an internationally recognized center of excellence.

In his professional career, he has worked as a freelance journalist for the daily newspaper The Confederation, founder and managing director of Cinématte AG and managing director of Quinnie Cinéma Films in Bern and central secretary of impressum, the Swiss journalists' association in Fribourg.

Actually, the Archive should have been opened last year in April. The Fondation Hindemith had donated the archives of the composer and his wife from their villa in Blonay to the Institute of Musicology at the University of Zurich (see SMZ 6/2020, p. 24). The ceremony had to be postponed several times due to the pandemic. There was great joy in the auditorium of the University of Zurich when it finally took place on October 27. "Hindemith is back," said Katharina Michaelowa, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Zurich. Cultivating the memory of Paul Hindemith makes his creativity clearly tangible and motivates people to try new things. Andreas Eckhardt, President of the Fondation Hindemith, Blonay, pointed out that the aim of this donation was to preserve Hindemith's library as a whole in the spirit of "appropriate remembrance" and to make it available to academics and the public.

Integrated into the celebration was the so-called "Hindemith Lecture 2021". Since 2006, the Institute of Musicology has commemorated the first chair holder with a lecture every November. Christine Lubkoll, Professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, spoke on the subject of "Obligatory Legacy": Paul Hindemith and the cultural tradition. With reference to the speech Hindemith had given in Hamburg on September 12, 1950 (Johann Sebastian Bach. Ein verpflichtendes Erbe), she shed light on Hindemith's life as an exile and returnee, his relationship to tradition and concluded: "Obligatory heritage is always a departure."

In her welcoming remarks, Inga Mai Groote, Director of the Institute of Musicology at the University of Zurich, who hosted the event, pointed this out: The Zurich Hindemith Archive wants to preserve the treasures, but also make them resound. And so Tabea Zimmermann rounded off this opening ceremony in the most beautiful way with her highly impressive interpretation of Hindemith's Sonata for viola solo op. 25/1.
 

Born in 1957, Ulrich Konrad has held a chair in musicology at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) since 1996. He studied musicology, German studies and medieval and modern history at the universities of Bonn and Vienna. After completing his doctorate in philosophy, he taught and researched at the musicology department of the University of Göttingen from 1983. He habilitated there in 1991.

After holding the Chair of Musicology at the Free University of Berlin and teaching in Göttingen, he was C4 Professor of Musicology at the Freiburg State University of Music from 1993 to 1996. He then moved to JMU as Chair and Head of the Institute of Musicology. Under his leadership, the institute was reorganized and expanded.

It was to be a big anniversary festival, not a celebration, but a broad-based showcase of today's music-making with a look into the future. Nevertheless, there were two small glimpses back: in the opening ceremony, the Diotima Quartet played Paul Hindemith's third string quartet, which was first heard on August 1, 1921, the year the festival was founded, in Prince von Fürstenberg's castle in Donaueschingen. And the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, which was now performing in Donaueschingen for the first time, performed two world premieres by Christian Mason and Milica Djordjević under the direction of Baldur Brönnimann. Polyphony X by Pierre Boulez, which had caused an uproar in Donaueschingen in 1951 and then permanently disappeared into oblivion. The performance turned out without a hitch, and one wondered what had once seemed so scandalous about this harmless zombie. Perhaps the sterile serial mechanics?

Otherwise, the festival program, which had been extended by one day, was full of the present. 27 world premieres in 24 concerts: that bordered on acoustic overkill. However, the events could also be followed à la carte on the screen at home, as everything was broadcast live on the radio and Internet by SWR. This created a public that reached beyond the notorious insider circles, and the "new music fences" were also cleared away for a short time on site. With the "landscape composition" with mass appeal Danube/Rauschen Daniel Ott and Enrico Stolzenburg created a Jekami event for over a hundred participants, from accordionists to brass bands, garnished with sounds and noises from loudspeakers. The venue: the Donaueschingen shopping mile on Saturday afternoon.

In the orchestral and ensemble concerts, the audience was once again among themselves and, alongside many new names, also encountered the usual suspects: Siemens Prize winner Rebecca Saunders, the tireless Enno Poppe, the trendy Chaya Czernowin and Beat Furrer, who came up with a compact orchestral piece. The finale was the oratorio, which poured out in broad waves of sound The Red Death by Francesco Filidei on a text by Edgar Allan Poe, the unrivaled Master of Disaster. It was a fitting end to a festival in which scepticism about the future and fantasies of doom have long been an undercurrent of cultural criticism, applauded with relish, and in which artistic unease is increasingly spreading amidst the saturation. In this respect, it is business as usual, even in the anniversary year.

A quick look at the old programs shows that there was never any question of aesthetic paralysis. It is one of the characteristics of the Donaueschingen Festival that, driven by the contradictions of the times, it had to reinvent itself time and again and thus inevitably look to the future. Even its foundation was actually a productive misunderstanding. Prince Max Egon II von Fürstenberg, an old-style nobleman loyal to the emperor, had the crazy idea of creating a stage for young composers in war-ravaged Germany at a time of revolutionary upheaval. For him, this was more of a patronizing whim; he loved hunting and glamorous parties. But for the composers and performers he attracted, the "Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the Promotion of Contemporary Music", as they were called at the time, were a promise of the future.

A program committee consisting of the Reger student Joseph Haas, the pianist Eduard Erdmann and the Donaueschingen choirmaster and archivist Heinrich Burkhard had put together a program for three concerts from the submissions of one hundred and thirty-seven composers for the first year; an international honorary committee, which included Ferruccio Busoni, Richard Strauss, Franz Schreker and Arthur Nikisch, gave the undertaking the higher consecration. Among the composers from the very beginning were Philipp Jarnach, Alois Hába, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith and Ernst Krenek, later joined by Schönberg and Webern. The honeymoon lasted six years, after which the prince's expenses became too high.

In 1927, the festival moved to Baden-Baden. Now the conductor Hermann Scherchen took the reins, and with Teaching piece by Brecht/Hindemith (with audience participation), the Lindbergh flight by Brecht/Hindemith/Weill and film music by Hanns Eisler brought "applied music" to the fore. But even this did not last long, as the economic crisis of 1929 dealt the company a fatal blow.

So in 1930 they moved on to Berlin and in 1933, when the Nazi disaster set in, they returned home to Donaueschingen. In the meantime, the errant prince had joined the SA, and the new-born Donaueschingen Music Days now featured folk cantatas and community music with the Swabian Women's Singing Group. In 1938, Othmar Schoeck's Prelude for orchestra op. 48 on the program. With the outbreak of war in 1939, the spook came to a temporary end.

The second big start came in 1946, initially with established names such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Hindemith. In 1950, Südwestfunk Baden-Baden joined in with music director Heinrich Strobel and conductor Hans Rosbaud, and within a few years Donaueschingen had developed into an international hotspot for contemporary music. Everything of note in the avant-garde now came and went here: the top dogs of serialism such as Stockhausen and Boulez, the aleatorics, the Polish sound composers, Cage, Berio, Ligeti, Xenakis, Kagel and many others. The principle of always offering a forum to new tendencies was also valid during the postmodern phase and has remained so to this day. But things are probably changing now.

From the very beginning, the Musiktage have gradually expanded their aesthetic horizons. In the first phase, it was still largely limited to the German-Austrian area. From 1946, it expanded to Europe, with a few detours to non-European regions. And from now on, the aim is to turn specifically to other cultures. The anniversary year has now set the signal for this.

The step is right and necessary. New music" is no longer a European phenomenon. But the more it spreads across the globe, the more European standards are being called into question. Under the motto "Donaueschingen global", the program now included ensembles, composers and performers from Colombia, Bolivia, Ghana, Thailand and Uzbekistan, among others. While some South Americans still work at the intersection of indigenous cultures and European-American influences, most of the Asian and African contributions continue to develop their own traditions; their preferred means are electronics and current media forms of presentation.

The traditional festival-goer in Donaueschingen was confronted with completely new listening and viewing experiences. And with a bag full of questions: What is "new" about these contributions? Is it new in substance or just new for us white men and women? What is the relationship between the "new" and the "old" of the region of origin? Do we need to know this in order to understand it? Is it about intercultural understanding or just the good old exoticism show in new, colorful, media-spruced-up clothes? In any case, it was clear that there was a breath of fresh air in the Black Forest, and the thematic selection guaranteed that the sails of the anti-colonialist debate were also allowed to billow.

Donaueschingen global" was right on trend. How things will continue under the new director Lydia Rilling, who is now taking over from Björn Gottstein, remains to be seen. However, two neuralgic points are already recognizable: one concerns the limited time capacities of the weekend festival. With the new cosmopolitanism, the established white avant-garde and its audience could unexpectedly find themselves on the defensive. The other concerns the cooperation with government-related organizations at "Donaueschingen global". If the Musiktage continue to rely on their organizational and financial efficiency, then the hip multicultural fun can continue unabated. But in doing so, they also become dependent on foreign policy, which subordinates cultural exchange to its guidelines and uses it to cultivate its image. And then artistic freedom in new music will also come to an end.

Milena Krstic performs solo as Milena Patagônia and in a duo with Sarah Elena Müller as Cruise Ship Misery. Ever since she was engaged for a Balkan theater project, she has wanted to get to the bottom of her family's roots in Serbia. Her partner Markus Mezenen will document this research in a film. According to the City of Bern, this is the first time that a studio grant has been awarded to a collective or family in collaboration with the Städtekonferenz Kultur (SKK).

Theater scholar Silja Gruner will spend the second half of 2022 in Cairo. She has been working at the auawirleben Theaterfestival Bern for five years and wants to use the time to deepen her research into inclusive theater practice and the Arab theater world.

Together with other members of the Swiss Conference of Cities and Towns of Culture (SKK), the City of Bern offers residencies every two to three years for artists of all disciplines in Belgrade (4 months), Buenos Aires (6 months), Genoa (3 months) and Cairo (6 months). The scholarship covers the costs of a studio apartment and a contribution to living expenses. The working and living spaces in Belgrade are reserved for a collective, duo or family as part of the Bernese scholarship.

Traditional and modern folk music is not only very popular with the public. In recent years, the demand for music teachers has also grown considerably. The Lucerne School of Music is now increasingly taking this development into account: while students were previously only able to choose a focus on folk music as part of their Bachelor's or Master's degree, from fall 2022 they will have the opportunity to focus their studies entirely on folk music - both instrumental and vocal.

Students choose typical folk music instruments such as the Schwyzerörgeli, dulcimer, accordion and yodel or a folk music-related instrument such as the violin, double bass, clarinet or piano as their main instrument. There will also be practical lessons in impromptu playing, i.e. playing by ear.

More about the study program at: hslu.ch/bachelor-folk-music

It started at three in the afternoon and ended late in the evening: music, performances and a sound installation took over Bern Minster from top to bottom. The brothers Michel and André Décosterd, known as Cod.Act, had set up one of their installations on the "Bsetzisteinen" of Münsterplatz: An individual entangled with ropes tried to free himself, with the ropes emitting different sounds depending on the pull and direction of pull.

Eight musicians from the Proton Bern ensemble played in the vaulted hall, an octagonal concert room high up in the cathedral Earth Ears: A Sonic Ritual by the American composer Pauline Oliveros. With Appel interstellaire for horn solo from the piece Du Canyon aux étoiles by Olivier Messiaen, the Olivier Darbellay Horn Quartet began its performance of works for one to four horns, most of them composed by the collective L'art pour l'Aar.

Franziska Baumann presented in Prop-hectics our relationship to virtual voices; Léa Legros Pontal approached Ligeti's viola sonata from the perspective of improvisation and Christoph Mahnig seduced with Spaces for trumpet solo for a precise acoustic exploration of his instrument and the concert hall.

Franziska Baumann in the vaulted hall of the cathedral

Werner Hasler was inspired by the chimes of the cathedral, "attached" his intervention to the sounds emanating from it, changed them imperceptibly and then sent his echo after them.

For the finale of the festival, visitors moved less than a hundred meters further into the crypt of the Church of St. Peter and Paul. In the low basement, the Kukuruz Quartet played compositions by the African-American composer Julius Eastman on four pianos, who made racism and homophobia the oppressive themes of his pieces as early as the 1970s.

Music by Julius Eastman in the crypt of the church of St. Peter and Paul