According to its press release, the cantonal government is gradually implementing the "tipping initiative" approved by the people at the end of 2020 to strengthen Basel's youth and alternative culture. Clubs will now be able to apply for support for high-quality live programs. This is subject to fair fees and remuneration.

The planned integral model for club promotion envisages close cooperation between the Basel Music Office, the Culture and Gastronomy Association and the Basel-Stadt Culture Department. The music office will be responsible for promoting high-quality live programs on behalf of the canton. To this end, its supporting association will receive a total state contribution of CHF 2.895 million for the years 2024 to 2026.

Smaller investments in the operational infrastructure are also to be made possible as part of the new club funding. For example, smaller construction measures that help to defuse noise conflicts are to be supported. These applications will be assessed by the Culture Department. In addition, the Government Council has approved a state contribution of CHF 640,000 to the Culture and Gastronomy Association for the years 2023 to 2026 in order to establish a tandem model for mediation between residents, authorities and event organizers. The club promotion package costs a total of CHF 1.0685 million per year. It is therefore subject to a referendum.

On March 28, the government council decided on a further step towards implementing the "tip initiative": it increased funding for the promotion of youth culture and determined that GGG Kulturkick, which is supported by GGG Basel, will be the first point of contact for the promotion of individual projects in youth culture.

More info:
Canton of Basel-Stadt and City of Basel - Basel plays a pioneering role in promoting club culture throughout Switzerland

The strategy was developed with the help of Winterthur's music schools, the city's youth music and the elementary school. The Competence Center for Research in Music Education at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts provided technical support for the work. It formulates five strategic directions and nine measures for a four-year period: The musical participation of the population is to be facilitated, basic training with equal opportunities is to be ensured, musical talents are to be promoted and music-making in groups is to be further developed. Popular programs include the Winterthur Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Conservatory's youth choirs. Accents are also to be set in modern music.

According to the city's press release, the city and Winterthur's music schools can only implement the strategy together. The music schools have signed a cooperation agreement to this end. This is a milestone in the "Dreiklang" project of the Winterthur music schools, which aims to merge the music schools with the support of the city. The next step is for the city to draw up a joint service agreement with the music schools, which will cover the entire range of services required by the Music School Act, from entry level to university entrance.

The aim is for the new Winterthur music school, with its overall offering, to take on a supra-regional service mandate and thus be able to provide services for the communities supporting the current youth music school and beyond.

More info:
https://stadt.winterthur.ch/gemeinde/verwaltung/stadtkanzlei/kommunikation-stadt-winterthur/medienmitteilungen-stadt-winterthur/eine-neue-musikbildungsstrategie-fuer-die-stadt-winterthur

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The support will enable Erlangen-based music computer scientist Meinard Müller to further develop deep learning technologies that extract complex features and hidden relationships directly from music signals. As with the analysis of image data, this involves pattern recognition - pitches, chords and rhythm, but also vocal lyrics. For example, algorithms that are able to find the right song based on a pre-hummed melody or make suggestions for songs with a similar rhythm are used for this purpose.

Meinard Müller has been Professor of Semantic Audio Signal Processing at the International Audio Laboratories Erlangen, AudioLabs for short, since 2012. AudioLabs is a joint project of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, in which the MP3 format was developed.

More info:
https://www.fau.de/2023/03/news/leute/musikinformatiker-der-fau-erhaelt-dfg-foerderung-von-125-millionen-euro/

Res Marty has an exceptional voice, which has made him a sought-after performer in numerous concerts, writes the canton of Schwyz. He also devoted himself intensively to the life and work of the composer Joachim Raff, who was born in Lachen. From his father, he took over the presidency of the Joachim Raff Societywhich he has been running, with a brief interruption, for a good four decades. A few years ago, Marty wrote a Biography of the composerwhich is now considered a standard work. He is the initiator of the Raff archive with adjoining museum in Lachen.

Anja Gmür alias Kings Elliot grew up in Wilen bei Wollerau and Altendorf, attended school here and completed a commercial apprenticeship after graduating from high school. She moved to London in 2015 and uploaded her songs online. This led to contact with a music manager and a record deal with Universal Music in 2021. Since 2020, she has been touring the world as a singer with international stars of the music scene.

The 2023 Cultural Awards will be presented at a ceremony in fall 2023. Res Marty will receive CHF 10,000 as the prize money. The cultural sponsorship prize for Anja Gmür and Judith Keller is endowed with 5000 francs each.

According to the Birdsong press release, Patricia Kopatchinskaja has already written and performed a violin concerto and a series of duos. Some of her pieces have been performed in the Berlin Philharmonie with musicians from the Karajan Academy and in Lockenhaus by Nicolas Altstaedt and Vilde Frang and recorded for the Alpha label. This also applies to a duo with Pekka Kuusisto, which was performed in Oslo in September 2022.

The violinist often performs her pieces as an encore, often with members of the orchestras she has performed with. Together with clarinettist Reto Bieri, she has recorded some of her duos for violin and clarinet for Phantasmagoria, the Elbphilharmonie's video label. A composition for violin and four speaking voices was premiered at Radiokulturhaus ORF 2022.

The team conducted singing experiments with around 1800 test subjects from India and North America. In order to simulate the development of music through oral tradition, they were asked to pass on a total of more than 3400 melodies from one person to the next by singing - similar to the children's game "Silent Mail". Over time, the singers made mistakes, so that the music developed more and more in the direction of appealing and easy-to-learn melodies.

According to the study, oral tradition has a profound impact on the development of music. Among other things, this can be seen in the emergence of various musical structures. Some of these structures could be observed across cultures, such as small pitch intervals or arch-shaped melodic contours - melodies that first rise in pitch and then fall again.

However, the study also revealed clear cultural differences: participants from North America tended to follow the cultural conventions of Western music when passing on the melodies, whereas in India, common Indian scales were preferred. Teams from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge were involved in the study.

More info:
Melodies in Transition - Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

Esther Hoppe has made a name for herself internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. After studying in Basel, Philadelphia, London and Zurich, she won first prize at the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 2002. As a violinist in the Tecchler Trio, she has won numerous prizes, including the German Music Competition, the Prix Credit Suisse and first prize at the ARD Competition in Munich.

From 2009 to 2013, she was also first concertmaster of the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In this role, she led the ensemble several times from the first desk, performing music from the Baroque to modern times. Esther Hoppe currently teaches as a professor of violin at the Mozarteum University Salzburg. She plays the "De Ahna" Stradivarius, built in 1722.

The Camerata Zürich was founded in 1957 by the Swiss conductor Räto Tschupp. Following Räto Tschupp, Marc Kissóczy and Thomas Demenga, Igor Karsko has been the orchestra's artistic director since the 20/21 season. In addition to new music, the orchestra's repertoire focuses on rarely performed and often rediscovered works from the Classical and Romantic periods.

The Spanish-born conductor and violinist has been associated with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg as a guest conductor since 2019 and has led the orchestra in concerts in Salzburg, guest performances and CD productions.

He is also Professor of Violin at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a regular mentor and conductor of the Guildhall School Chamber and Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall in London. Previously, he was concertmaster of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for six years and concertmaster of the Musikkollegium Winterthur until the end of the 2020/21 season.

The study, led by the University of Cambridge, the Beethoven Center San Jose and the American Beethoven Society, the KU Leuven, the company FamilyTreeDNA, the University Hospital Bonn and the University of Bonn, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, brings to light new insights into the composer's illnesses and raises questions about his recent ancestry and cause of death.

The international research team has succeeded in decoding Ludwig van Beethoven's genome using five genetically matching locks of hair. His hereditary predisposition, combined with his alcohol consumption, led to his severe liver disease. The genetic material of relatives living today also points to an extramarital relationship in Beethoven's paternal line.

It was previously known that Beethoven asked his brothers in a letter written in 1802 to have his illness examined by his doctor after his death and to publish the results. Since then, there has been uncertainty about the Bonn composer's state of health and cause of death, as the notes from Beethoven's doctor have never been found. In order to find out more about his illnesses and the cause of death, the international research team used modern archaeogenetic research methods.

Original article:
https://www.mpg.de/20018695/0320-evan-beethovens-genom-150495-x

After extensive research, Ariel Lanyi, one of the winners of the Kissingen Piano Olympics, caught Rudolf Buchbinder's attention, write those responsible. He was particularly impressed by his interpretation of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata.

Ariel Lanyi was born in Jerusalem. He lives in London and graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with Hamish Milne and lan Fountain. In 2021, Ariel won 3rd prize (the Roslyn Lyons Bronze Medal) at the Leeds International Piano Competition and played the Brahms Concerto No. 2 in the final with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze. In 2022 he undertook a solo tour of Argentina.

The idea of the "Prix Serdang" was born during the pandemic and serves to "promote and preserve artistic creation". It has been awarded annually since 2022. Curator Rudolf Buchbinder recommends a maximum of three young talents. The choice is ultimately made by initiator Adrian Flury and cultural manager Thomas Pfiffner.

Guido Simmen has left his mark on Zug's cultural life "with his continuous, outstanding and highly acclaimed work", writes the canton. In 2004, he developed the VoiceSteps musical school from the two children's choirs of the Catholic parishes of Cham and Steinhausen. He composed various children's songs and was co-author and composer of numerous children's and youth musical theater pieces.

Simmen has also directed countless VoiceSteps stage productions and founded the Swiss Youth Musical Network. His "unwavering passion for musicals and interest in the development of children and young people" have motivated and inspired Guido Simmen over the past decades.

The Zug Recognition Prize is endowed with CHF 15,000 and is awarded every two to three years by the Zug Cantonal Government Council at the request of the Cantonal Culture Commission.

Conceived and coordinated by Lukas Loss, director of the Infinity Music Festival in Basel, the project requires the orchestration of three complementary visions: Science, sound and image. The unconventional pairing of artists and physicists in the multidisciplinary project Tinguely Entangled is ambitious: Latvian composer Linda Leimane is creating a bespoke musical arrangement in close collaboration with some of the world's leading quantum researchers.

Interventions by five scientists from the National Center of Competence in Research SPIN and visual representations by artist Luca Scarzella complement the performance. At the Department of Physics, Jung-Ching Liu, Henry Legg, Arianna Nigro, Rafael Eggli and Valerii Kozin took up the challenge of communicating the complex principles of quantum physics to a lay audience.

More info:
https://www.unibas.ch/de/Aktuell/News/Uni-Agenda/Tinguely-Entangled-verwandelt-Quantenphysik-in-Melodien.html

The interest group "art but fair" has been campaigning in Germany, Austria and Switzerland "for ethical and fair working conditions and appropriate fees in the performing arts and music" since 2013. The association "art but fair UNITED" has now been founded in Vienna. As Europe's first professional association, it aims to represent the economic and social interests of freelancers at publicly funded or publicly sponsored permanent theater companies, festivals and concert stages. Among other things, it aims to work towards eliminating loopholes in current legislation.

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically highlighted the precarious situation of the newly self-employed, writes the newly founded association. In the last three years, however, "legally questionable employment models at publicly funded institutions that have been practiced for decades" have also come to light. This is currently the subject of a model lawsuit for the entire choral sector at the Salzburg Festival, which has now been set for hearing at the Labor and Social Court in Vienna on April 24 of this year.

The association will start operating and accepting membership applications on May 1, 2023.

More info: https://artbutfair.org

What is described in the Federal Council's press release as a "temporary decline" in growth, writes Suisseculture, means budget cuts of two percent in figures for 2024. Cuts that would hit culture at the worst possible time. The Federal Council has set the upper limit for target growth in the financial decisions for the years 2025 to 2028 at 1.2 percent in the area of culture. The target growth would therefore by no means compensate for the cuts made in 2024. This would make it impossible to tackle the challenges facing the cultural sector or compensate for inflation.

At a time when a cost-of-living adjustment of several percent of the wage bill is being negotiated, a reduction in cultural expenditure (the vast majority of which flows directly into wage payments) is not justifiable. Instead, it is time to introduce sustainable measures to improve social security for cultural workers - with corresponding adjustments to the first and second pillar pension systems.

Original article:
https://www.suisseculture.ch/?article=der_bundesrat_verkauft_kuerzungen_als_wachstum

Last year, according to the canton's press release, young people worked on rap beats and hip-hop lyrics; this year, pupils from primary classes 1 to 4 are practising a fixed repertoire of songs from all over the world. They form the basis for fourteen concert evenings with integrated storytelling, in which a total of 1400 children are involved in singing.

At the main rehearsal and the subsequent concert, the respective school choirs will be conducted by Alpnach singer and singing teacher Antonia Gasser. Musical accompaniment will be provided by the Bodenäbe trio, with Christoph Blum on double bass, Hans Blum on clarinet and Willi Stierli on Schwyzerörgeli. Stefanie Dillier, head of the Alpnach music school, will act as storyteller and overall project manager.

Under the title "Ghipft wiä gsungä", the first season took place in Alpnach, Giswil, Sachseln, Sarnen and Stalden with nine concerts in front of packed audiences. The second season starts on March 17, 2023 in Wilen, followed by a concert in Lungern on March 20 and a double concert in Kerns on March 21. The final concert will take place in Engelberg Abbey Church on March 22, 2023.