According to a press release from the FSO, value added in the cultural industries once again exceeded the CHF 15 billion mark, but did not reach the pre-corona level. These are some of the new results from the Federal Statistical Office's (FSO) statistics on the cultural industries.

In 2021, the cultural sector recorded 1426 more companies than in 2020 (up 2.2%), with a total of 65,369 cultural enterprises. This figure is even higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic and represents a new high since 2011. The increase in the cultural sector (plus 2.2%) was therefore significantly higher than in the economy as a whole (plus 1.5%). It was most pronounced in the audio-visual and multimedia, visual arts and advertising sectors, weaker in architecture and even negative in books and press (minus 1.5%).

By contrast, the number of employees in the cultural sector rose less sharply in 2021 than in the economy as a whole. The upturn mainly affected small structures. The proportion of small cultural enterprises (fewer than 3 employees) was not only higher in 2021 than in 2020, but was even higher than in 2019.

SP-Onlinepromotion.com was a widely used website that sold artificially generated likes, plays/views, comments and subscribers on Spotify, SoundCloud and YouTube, enabling it to illegally manipulate actual streaming views and thereby distort competition.

In Germany, the Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI) and IFPI had already succeeded in 2021 in prohibiting the operator of the streaming manipulation websites likeservice24.de and likeservice24.com from generating additional plays, views and likes as a service. In 2020, netlikes.de and likesandmore.de and other similar services had to be discontinued. The music industry has also taken measures elsewhere, including in Brazil, and is working with government authorities and interfaces in many countries to prevent the operation of such services.

Born in Emmental in 1936, Urs Frauchiger initially studied cello at the Hochschule für Musik. From 1970 he headed the music department of the Bern Radio Studio and from 1977 the Bern Conservatory. From 1992 to 1997, he also headed the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Frauchiger was also Secretary General of the European Conservatoires and Honorary Professor at the University of Bern.

Frauchiger became widely known for books such as "Was zum Teufel ist mit der Musik los? Eine Art Musiksoziologie für Kenner und Liebhaber" (1981/1982) and "Mit Mozart reden" (1990).

In 2017, Urs Frauchiger gave an interview to the Schweizer Musikzeitung on the subject of "sensitizing": Awaken openness to the phenomena. In it, he reported that he had been sensitized to listening by his singing mother and in the forest. He saw being attentive to everything that happens and being able to differentiate as the basis, but also the goal of learning and making music.

An excerpt: When I came to the Konsi for the first time as a third grader, not for lessons, I was only supposed to hand in drawings (...), it was also a primal experience for me: this house full of music; that there were so many people playing an instrument! I was the only one in the Emmental far and wide with my cello. I had to walk two kilometers to my teacher, and when I passed farmers, they always said: "Where are you going with your bass violin?" - "It's not a bass violin, it's a cello." - "How long do you have to practise before you can play it?" - "Casals practises eight hours a day and he's already 75!" They must have thought: The boy is a bit crazy.

The Bernese collective Arbre consists of Paul Butscher (flugelhorn, voice, synthesizer), Mélusine Chappuis (rhodes, synthesizer) and Xavier Almeida (drums, piano) and develops a sound world between jazz and alternative music.

The ZKB Jazz Prize has been awarded for 21 years. It promotes young, innovative Swiss bands and aims to enrich the diversity of the Swiss jazz scene. The competition for the prize takes place at the Moods jazz club in Zurich. The prize money is to be used for the music; for studio productions, CD and label costs, for instruments, advertising or bookings. This year's international jury consisted of Jane Cornwell (journalist, UK), Carlo Brühlhart (journalist, CH), Rabih Abou-Khalil (musician, LB), Elina Duni (musician, CH) and Martina Berther (musician and audience representative).

The German-Japanese conductor will take over the position from April 2025 for an initial period of three years. His contract will take the 43-year-old to Sapporo for eight weeks per season. He will be back in Japan in November 2024 before his contract begins.

Grandy studied cello, music theory and conducting in Munich, Basel and Berlin. After several years as a cellist, including with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, he began his career as a conductor as Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater Darmstadt and shortly afterwards won the Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition. From 2015 to 2023, he was General Music Director at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg.

According to a press release issued by the city of Chur, it has been pointed out several times in the context of the city's "cultural spaces" target that there is a major lack of performance opportunities, particularly for young bands. For this reason, the city council has set up "Newcomer Stages & Live Support", a new support program for young bands.

The pilot project was realized last year. In addition to opportunities to perform on the stages of the Cuadro22 and Palazzo Beat Club concert venues in Chur with professional infrastructure, the participating bands receive expert feedback. They will be advised by experts at a workshop and presented in a video portrait. This year, the spotlight will be on the Chur rock bands Dr. Dipshit, Revival and Reat.

On Friday, October 6, Dr. Dipshit & Revival will be playing at Cuadro22 in Chur. They mix their rock sound with elements of grunge and punk. On Saturday, October 7, Reat will be performing at the Palazzo Beat Club. The three band members and childhood friends from the Engadin now live in Chur. Their music is a mixture of alternative and punk rock and is sung in their mother tongue, Rhaeto-Romanic.

Lang completed his doctorate in composition in Ireland and in musicology in Austria. He has taught music theory at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, the HMT Rostock and the Institute for Music at the Hochschule Osnabrück. From 2010 to 2017, he initially worked as a lecturer and later as a professor of composition and music theory at the ZHdK. He then spent five years teaching historical and contemporary composition and music theory at the Hochschule für Musik "Hans Eisler" Berlin. Since 2018, he has been Professor of Music Theory (including composition) at the HMT Rostock.

Founded in 1994, the Rostock University of Music and Drama (hmt) is an international educational institution in the fields of music, drama, music teaching, theater teaching (performing arts) and musicology. The approximately 500 students come from 42 nations.

With the prize, which is endowed with 20,000 francs, the Basel government council is honoring the commitment of the co-founder and long-standing artistic director of the Gare du Nord, the station for new music in the former buffet rooms of the Badischer Bahnhof in Basel. Meiser came to Basel in 1988 as a young actress and member of the Basel Theater ensemble. After her acting career, she co-founded the Gare du Nord in 2002. Since then, the station for new music has developed into a renowned meeting place for the contemporary music scene from Switzerland and abroad.

The Basel Culture Promotion Prize is intended to send out a publicly visible cultural policy signal for young cultural initiatives. This year, the jury decided to award the 10,000 Swiss franc prize to the Basel Okra Collective. The group, consisting of Jean Foncé, Joy Asumadu, Anouchka Enziga, Glenn Asumadu, Tidiane Sane, Mirco Joao-Pedro, Imani Fux, Abdulmalik Abdi and Katie Omole, creates party places where discrimination has no place.

The support measures during the pandemic have worked and prevented worse, writes Suisseculture. In the long term, however, it can be observed that the income of cultural professionals is continuing to fall and that the trend from 2016-19 is continuing.

Compared to other sectors, income levels in the cultural sector are very low. During the pandemic, politicians have worked to maintain cultural activities and minimized the loss of income with support measures. In general, incomes appear to be stabilizing at a (low) level comparable to the three years before the pandemic. However, if a longer period is considered - with reference to the earlier studies by Suisseculture Sociale on the income of cultural professionals - then, according to the umbrella organization, it can be stated that the income of cultural professionals tends to fall over the years.

Link to the study:
https://www.suisseculture.ch/uploads/media/default/179/FR_Ecoplan_Kulturschaffende_nach_der_Pandemie_20230620.pdf

At the members' meeting of the German Cultural Council, Roth explained that from next year, cultural institutions funded by the federal government will have to pay freelance artists at least a minimum fee for their services. The German Cultural Council has been calling for significantly higher remuneration for freelance artists for years. In some federal states (NRW, Brandenburg, Bremen and Saxony), so-called basic fees are already being prepared.

The German Minister of State for Culture has also once again announced a funding program "Excellent Orchestral Landscape Germany". Orchestras and ensembles can use the funding from the program to "implement projects on socially relevant topics". This year, projects that deal with issues of sustainability and the consequences of the climate crisis or promote diversity are to be supported. A total of 4.8 million euros is available for the program, and a project can be funded with up to 400,000 euros.

Cellist Patrick Demenga founded the Jahreszeiten-Konzerte in Blumenstein, which he directed from 1995 to 2015. From 2002 to 2006 he was artistic director of the cello festival Viva Cello in Liestal. He has been artistic director of the Meiringen Music Festival since 2005. He teaches at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne and at the Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo in Italy, among others.

Christine Lauterburg is a pioneer of new Swiss folk music and is now also at home as a singer and musician in pop, chanson and world music. She has been performing with the band Doppelbock for more than 20 years and has helped write Swiss music and cultural history with companions such as Cyrill Schläpfer, Hank Shizzoe, Michael von der Heide and Gardi Hutter.

Bänz Oester is one of the outstanding double bass players on the Swiss jazz scene. With his current main project The Rainmakers, he has been on tour in Switzerland, Europe and South Africa this year. He teaches at two universities, the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne and the Musikakademie in Basel. His students include Colin Vallon, Andreas Schärer and Elina Duni.

The Tootard duo consists of the two brothers Hasan and Rami Nakhleh. They grew up stateless in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria and now live in Bern. Their music is a mixture of Southwest Asian disco beats, psychedelic rock, Arabic music and desert blues. They tour Europe, Canada, Japan and the Arab world and also play in the Palestinian autonomous area in the West Bank.

Annie Ruefenacht is behind the stage name Annie Aries. The Swiss-Filipino composer completed a Master's degree in Music and Media Arts at Bern University of the Arts (HKB). She has been teaching in the Sound Arts program at HKB since 2019. In her works, she creates minimalist sound textures and recurring rhythmic patterns that interweave organically. Her works have been presented at festivals in New York, San Francisco and Bern, among others.

Howard Griffiths has significantly shaped and developed the Orpheum Foundation over the past 23 years, the foundation writes in its press release. For example, the launch of the "Orpheum Supporters Orchestra", the commissioning of compositions and collaboration with international educational institutions such as the Juilliard School New York and Kronberg Academy were all initiatives of Howard Griffiths. During his tenure, 230 supporters benefited from the Orpheum's sponsorship concept. Not least among them is Oliver Schnyder, who describes his performance at an Orpheum concert with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under David Zinman as the start of his career.

In Oliver Schnyder, "a worthy successor has been found who will further develop the Orpheum sponsorship idea". Like Howard Griffiths, Oliver Schnyder performs internationally and at the same time has special ties to Swiss musical life. Oliver Schnyder will provide new impetus in the field of chamber music and intensify networking with other sponsoring institutions.

A "Cultural Agenda 2030" forms the basis for the city's cultural funding in the coming years. According to the press release, it is based on the four focal points "Cultural diversity", "Cultural participation", "Cultural space" and "Communication, network, cooperation". In connection with the 2030 cultural agenda and the 2030 sports concept, the city council is applying to parliament to extend the subsidy agreements for the years 2024 to 2026. The cultural institutions Südpol, Neubad and Kleintheater are to receive around CHF 6.75 million over the three years:

• Verein Südpol Luzern: Fr. 4,053,682 (loan and subsidy agreement)
• Verein Netzwerk Neubad: Fr. 1'468'728.- (user loan and subsidy agreement)
• Stiftung Kleintheater: CHF 1,230,000 (subsidy agreement)

The subsidy agreement with Konzerthaus Schüür was concluded earlier for the period 2022 to 2026 due to the conversion and renovation project. From 2027, all agreements with subsidy recipients in culture and sport are to be congruent again. This type of support for Lucerne's cultural institutions has been in place since 2001, and in the sports sector since 2003. These contractual arrangements over several years give the institutions the opportunity to plan and work for the longer term.

The City Council is supporting other cultural events and associations with around CHF 3.8 million between 2024 and 2026. In doing so, it is recognizing the high social significance. Contributions received: Verein Kunsthalle Luzern, Verein Fumetto, Stiftung Gletschergarten Luzern, Stiftung World Band Festival, Verein Lucerne Blues Festival and IG Kultur. For the first time, the city has drawn up subsidy agreements with the two umbrella organizations of the city's cultural organizations and sports clubs.

The revenue from the ticket tax remains an important source of funding for the promotion of culture and sport, writes the city. The B+A ticket tax is planned for spring 2024. The Education Directorate is thus presenting various possible solutions as to how the ticket tax can be relieved in the future in order to obtain more room for maneuver in the promotion of culture and sport and to drive forward the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Culture and the 2030 Sport Concept.

The entire press release from the city: https://www.stadtluzern.ch/aktuelles/newslist/1957801

Kristiina Poska is currently Music Director of the Flemish Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Latvia. From 2006 to 2011 she was chief conductor of the Cappella Academica, from 2012 to 2016 Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper Berlin and in the 2019/20 season music director at the Theater Basel. Poska's latest recording of Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 7, released on Fuga Libera/Outhere, is the result of her collaboration with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra.

The Orchestre Français des Jeunes is the national youth orchestra of France, founded in 1982 by the Ministry of Culture. It consists of young musicians between the ages of 16 and 25. Poska succeeds Michael Schønwandt at the Orchestre Français des Jeunes, who has held the post since summer 2021.

The Léonie Sonning Prize has been awarded to composers, conductors, instrumentalists and singers since 1959. The first winner was Igor Stravinsky. Other recipients include Birgit Nilsson, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Rubinstein, Dimitri Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Svyatoslav Richter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Leonard Bernstein.

The flautist Emmanuel Pahud from western Switzerland began his musical studies at the age of six. He completed his studies in 1990 with the 1er Prix of the Paris Conservatory and continued his training with Aurèle Nicolet. He won 1st prize at the competitions in Duino, Kobe and Geneva. At the age of 22, Emmanuel Pahud was engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic as principal flute under Claudio Abbado, a position he still holds today. He also enjoys an extensive international career as a soloist and chamber musician.