Nowadays, music publishing no longer only means the traditional printing of sheet music and books, but also digital distribution and license management to a large extent, writes the University of Kassel. Almost every time music is played on YouTube or in the concert hall, royalties have to be paid to rightholders, and music publishers very often act as license administration offices. The practical relevance of studying in Kassel is primarily due to the fact that the regionally based publishing houses have been firmly integrated into the course.

In addition to typical courses in historical and systematic musicology as well as music education/music mediation, the course is characterized by numerous practical and future-oriented courses. These include the basics of layout and music notation, business administration and copyright law, as well as courses on digital music marketing, structural change in music publishing and a lecture series on new business models.

Within the University of Kassel, there is cooperation with the Institute for Business Law. A cooperation agreement has also been reached with Detmold University of Music. Last but not least, the new course promotes networking between the university and the region and yet remains a unique selling point - no other German-speaking university offers such a course.

More info: https://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/studium/musikverlagswesen-master

In her thesis, Hana Mustafi from the Kollegium St. Michael, Fribourg, deals with the question of how cultural identity affects the perception of music. Against a thoroughly researched theoretical background, she conducted an empirical study with 36 test subjects using a specially designed questionnaire and listening experiment, according to the expert Yannick Wey. With concisely presented, vividly conveyed and plausibly interpreted results, Mustafi succeeded in skillfully grasping the complex topic and analytically penetrating the metaphor of music as a "bridge of cultures".

More info: https://sjf.ch/musik-eine-bruecke-der-kulturen/

The "Ogygia" project by Linus Truninger (Kantonsschule Rychenberg, Winterthur) consists of a critically reflected transformation of the Calypso episode from Homer's Odyssey into a modern short opera. Its creator is responsible for the libretto, composition and initial sound staging, and places his work in the historical context of the adaptation of myths on the operatic stage, according to the appraisal by expert Leo Dick. With his artistic research, he demonstrates in an intelligent and sensually tangible way that myths are dependent on being constantly rewritten and updated in order to preserve their identity-forming power.

More info: https://sjf.ch/ogygia/

From a general perspective, according to the Oldenburg team, two hypotheses about the role of vocal pitch in music production can be distinguished: First, vocal pitch might have been fixed throughout the history of popular music to ensure the intelligibility of the lyrics and the audibility of the main melody on the one hand and the audibility of the accompaniment on the other. Secondly, one could hypothesize that vocal pitch is used more flexibly as a result of the development of music technology to convey certain artistic choices and intentions during music production.

The aim of the study was to empirically test these hypotheses using a large data set of more than 700 songs. The team quantified the lead-vocal-to-accompaniment level ratio (LAR) in a representative selection of well-known songs from popular music recordings spanning several decades and the development of the LAR for the four top songs on the Billboard Hot 100 list since 1946.

Two different phases were observed: The average LAR decreased from around 5 dB to 1 dB until around 1975, but remained constant thereafter. Comparing the LAR across the different music genres, positive values were found for country, rap and pop, values around zero for rock and negative values for metal. Solo artists had consistently higher LAR values compared to bands. These results form a basis for a central aspect of the music mix.

Original article:
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jel/article/3/4/043201/2885300/Lead-vocal-level-in-recordings-of-popular-music?

According to her management, Eliana Burki's concert tours have taken her beyond Europe to the USA, South America and the Middle and Far East - and made her an ambassador for the Swiss national instrument in jazz, classical and world music.

With her band I Alpinisti, but also as a soloist with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra and the Munich Radio Orchestra, she has opened up a new repertoire for the alphorn. She has also incorporated jazz and funk as well as influences from the folk music of the countries she has visited. She is also one of the few Swiss musicians to have made a name for herself in the US music industry.

Burki was four years old when an alphorn ensemble at the finish line of a bike race sparked her passion for the instrument. Two years later, she convinced Hansjürg Sommer, the Alphorn Pope of Solothurn, to take her on as a pupil. Soon afterwards, she took part in the Swiss Yodelling Festival. At a later yodelling festival, she played a blues piece.

Rahel Kraft studied jazz singing and sound art in Lucerne and London. She has realized current performances and research projects in Japan, Sweden, Italy and at the Sitterwerk St. Gallen, among other places. Her book "Paradoxical Creatures" won a national prize for "The Most Beautiful Swiss Books of the Year 2020" in 2020.

The Thurgau grants are awarded by a jury made up of specialists from the cultural office and external experts. The number and quality of the applications received this year was exceptionally high, writes the canton. In addition to Rahel Kraft, the following artists were selected from 67 applications: Ariane Andereggen, (actress and performance artist), Liv Burkhard (photographer and filmmaker), Ray Hegelbach (visual artist), Fabian Kimoto (director and cameraman) and Julia Trachsel (comic artist).

In future, the municipal music school will be able to award further mandates to external institutions on the basis of a decision by the Chur municipal council and thus also ensure that other music promotion providers receive municipal contributions. The decision is part of a partial revision of the ordinance to the Cultural Promotion Act. Among other things, it is intended to reduce the administrative burden.

It thus rejects the original idea of expanding the list of defined institutions that receive financial support from the city in the area of extracurricular music promotion and places the municipal subsidies in a common pot. According to the city's announcement, this solution puts the music school in a strong position, but it comes with a special obligation and responsibility.

According to the MPIEA press release, the experiment was part of a series of concerts in which the Kammerphilharmonie transformed public spaces in Frankfurt into concert venues. On the evening of 11 September 2022, the ensemble performed two concerts with an identical program on the Bockenheim campus of Goethe University Frankfurt. The 60-minute performances included works by George Gershwin and Florence Price. They took place in the Festsaal of the Studierendenhaus and were simultaneously streamed in the Café KoZ located in the same building. The audience was invited to switch back and forth between the halls during the concerts to experience the qualities of both formats.

A total of 130 people attended the two performances, which were scientifically monitored by the MPIEA: 111 visitors took part in the pre-interview and 96 in the post-interview questionnaire. In addition, the researchers conducted a total of 38 in-depth interviews. The data collection was supplemented by video recordings made of the audience during the concerts. "As expected, the live experience was described as more intense and captivating overall, but the live stream also left a very good impression for the most part, especially in terms of the visual and acoustic aspects," reports Julia Merrill from the MPIEA.

Although almost everyone preferred the live situation, streaming formats were by no means considered superfluous - and not only as a worthwhile alternative in cases of limited mobility or for cost reasons, for example. For the further artistic exploration of live and broadcast formats, it therefore seems promising not to see such formats as competing with each other or to want to copy the other with one. Instead, it is important to be aware of the specific conditions and possibilities in each case and to develop complementary formats as artistic forms in their own right, which also make music tangible in different ways.

More info:
https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/newsroom/news/news-artikel/article/live-vs-stream.html

According to its President Tilo D. Braune, the European Cultural Foundation would like to pay tribute to the diverse activities of Artistic Director Numa Bischof Ullmann and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. Both of their commitments deserve "special attention and appreciation in the spirit of the European cause".

During Bischof's tenure, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra has given concerts on four continents in 30 countries and in over 100 cities. According to the orchestra's press release, Bischof has also entered into a strategic partnership with Warner Classics. In 2004, he launched a pioneering music education program, and in 2022 he initiated Lucerne's new international piano festival "Le piano symphonique".

The European Cultural Foundation aims to "stimulate a lively dialog between European countries and regions and contribute to a cultural exchange in Europe that supports politics, builds trust and promotes communication".

A total of 1.25 million euros will be made available for five years. To mark its 50th anniversary, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation invited tenders for the endowed professorship throughout the German-speaking world and has now awarded the contract to Freie Universität Berlin.

According to Freie Universität Berlin, the aim of the professorship is "to anchor contemporary music from the 20th century to the present more firmly in academic discourse, to promote the examination of contemporary music at universities and music academies and to promote research-based teaching". It will be filled in the winter semester 2023/24 and thus start at the same time as a newly planned Master's degree course in "Music, Sound, Performance".

More info: https://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we07/musik/

Almost half of those working in the German music industry also work in music education and just under a third in non-musical activities in order to earn a living. The average monthly net income is 2,660 euros, although one fifth earn less than 1,500 euros. The study was carried out on behalf of the miz on the basis of a nationwide, cross-genre survey by the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach (IfD).

While employees have an above-average monthly net income of €2940, freelancers earn significantly less at €2460 and a higher proportion of their income comes from non-musical activities. Gender-specific differences are also clear: on average, women earn 24 percent less than their male colleagues. Even if they are the main earner in a household, the gender pay gap is still 20 percent, according to the German Music Council's press release.

More info: https://miz.org/de/fokus/berufsmusikstudie

This year's Fritz Gerber Award will once again be presented to three Lucerne Festival Academy participants during the Summer Festival: cellist Elide Sulsenti, trombonist Romain Nussbaumer and percussionist Noah Rosen.

Cellist Elide Sulsenti was born in Catania in 1999. She studied at the Conservatorio di Musica di Cagliari with Oscar Piastrelloni and at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Miklos Perenyi. She is currently completing her studies at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano with Enrico Dinda. Percussionist Noah Rosen, born in Boston in 1995, specializes in contemporary music. He studies at the Basel Music Academy with Christian Dierstein and at the Boston Conservatory. The Swiss Romain Nussbaumer, born in 1999 in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, is currently studying trombone with David Bruchez-Lalli at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

The prestigious sponsorship prize has been awarded annually to young, highly talented artists since 2015. It includes a scholarship worth CHF 10,000 to attend the academy and additional prize money of CHF 10,000. The Fritz Gerber Foundation for gifted young people has been active since 1999. It supports talented young people in the fields of crafts, culture and sport. Applications for the Fritz Gerber Award are possible via an open call. The jury is made up of Michael Haefliger, Director of the Lucerne Festival, and the composer and conductor Heinz Holliger.

Andreas Schaerer will be artist in residence at the Saalfelden 2023 Jazz Festival with four different formations. He will be performing with the Finnish guitarist Kalle Kalima, the American bassist Tim Lefebvre, his Swedish colleague Björn Meyer, the Swiss percussionist Julian Sartorius and the Serbian "Professor of Creative Music Technology" Svetlana Maraš.

First held in 1978, the Saalfelden Jazz Festival takes place annually in August in Saalfelden am Steinernen Meer in Austria (in the wider Salzburg area). Since 2016, there has also been a smaller offshoot festival, Drei Tage Jazz, which takes place in January. The anniversary edition in 2019 attracted a total of 25,000 visitors over five days. A total of 80 concerts were held on various stages, around 60 of which were free to attend.

According to the press release, Brandy Butler has developed into one of the most important cultural mediators and activists in the city of Zurich in recent years. She is also part of and a driving force behind various local and national initiatives. For example, she has been organizing the highly acclaimed Drag Story Time for years. She also organizes the Black Performance Lab, in which "queer people of color (PoC) performers can reorient themselves". Most recently, she organized the Space Lab at Tanzhaus Zürich, where the PoC art scene from all over the world was able to work together and network in new ways.

The City of Zurich Art Prize, endowed with CHF 50,000, will go to filmmaker Cyril Schäublin in 2023. The award for special cultural merit will be presented at the cultural awards ceremony on November 24, 2023. The art prize will be presented at a separate ceremony.

Stefan Roth is a leading figure in the Thurgau and Swiss brass music scene, writes the canton of Thurgau. As a conductor of various formations, he has had a decisive influence on this genre and stands for the highest quality and great joy in playing. He is characterized in particular "by his great musical diversity and his commitment to wind music, even outside the conductor's podium". As a conductor, he not only combines musical qualities, but is also able to inspire children and young people for brass music to a high degree.

Stefan Roth was born in Winterthur in 1980 and spent his youth in Aadorf. He now lives in Scherzingen. He decided to study trombone at the Zurich University of the Arts and successfully completed a Bachelor of Arts in Music with Jan Cober and Piet Joris at the Maastricht Conservatory in the Netherlands. After two years of master's studies, in 2012 he became the first Swiss to earn a Master of Arts in "Windband Conducting" with distinction at the Bern University of the Arts. In July 2016, he achieved second place at the International Conductor's Competition in Augsburg.

Wise Music Group has acquired the shares from the Hinrichsen Foundation and will become the owner of Edition Peters Group in partnership with Christian Hinrichsen, whose family connection with the company began in 1863. Wise includes Chester Music, G. Schirmer, Associated Music Publishers, Novello & Co, Éditions Alphonse Leduc, Première Music, Le Chant du Monde, Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Unión Musical Ediciones and Bosworth Music GmbH.

In the 19th century, Edition Peters was best known for its association with composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Grieg. In the 20th century, the catalog included Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf, Richard Strauss, Morton Feldman, George Crumb and John Cage.

Today, the catalog presents contemporary composers such as Mark Andre, Sally Beamish, Daníel Bjarnason, Gloria Coates, James Dillon, Jonathan Dove, Sebastian Fagerlund, Brian Ferneyhough, Bernd Franke, Ash Fure, Bernhard Gander, Emily Howard, Clara Iannotta, George Lewis, Elena Mendoza, Shawn Okpebholo, Roxanna Panufnik, Roger Reynolds, Rebecca Saunders, Tyshawn Sorey, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Errollyn Wallen.