The federal government has taken the Covid crisis as an opportunity to analyze the challenges facing culture in Switzerland with the involvement of the cantons, cities and municipalities as well as cultural associations from all sectors. Based on this assessment, the Federal Office of Culture (FOC), Pro Helvetia and the Swiss National Museum are realigning the focus of their activities in the new cultural message, according to their press release. To this end, they have defined six fields of action:

• Culture as a world of work: The Confederation will contribute to the appropriate compensation and social security of professional cultural workers and advocate fair framework conditions and equal opportunities in the cultural sector.
• Updating cultural funding: The federal government is focusing more strongly on the work phases upstream and downstream of production.
• Digital transformation in culture: The federal government takes new digital and hybrid formats of production, dissemination and communication into account in its funding activities.
• Culture as a dimension of sustainability: The Confederation continues to develop the strategy for a high level of Baukultur and contributes to tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity and promoting renewable energies. It takes measures to support sustainability in the cultural sector and promotes social cohesion through broad access to culture, be it through the promotion of inclusion, new forms of cultural participation or the strengthening of amateur culture.
• Cultural heritage as a living memory: The Confederation is committed to a nationwide initiative for the appreciation and communication of Switzerland's tangible, intangible and digital cultural heritage. This commitment also includes promoting the professional and ethical handling of historically significant cultural heritage in Switzerland.
• Governance in the cultural sector: The Confederation is committed to greater cooperation and coordination in the cultural sector and with other sectors, is committed to a strong Swiss presence in international cultural policy and is developing a monitoring system with key figures on the cultural sector.

More info:
https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-95623.html

Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg (with Klaus Huber) and Paris, where she has lived since 1982 and conducted research at IRCAM. She has written operas and vocal works such as "Château de l'âme" (1996), "Oltra mar" (1999) and the oratorio "La Passion de Simone", which depicts the life and death of the philosopher Simone Weil.

Saariaho was the recipient of the Grawemeyer Award, the Polar Music Prize and the BBVA Foundation's Frontiers of Knowledge Award, among others, making her one of the most highly endowed composers of her time. In 2012, Saariaho was elected an honorary member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM).

In 2022, Saariaho's work "Vista" was performed at the Lucerne Festival by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Susanna Mälkki.

The Board of Trustees of the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana has appointed Barbara Widmer as Artistic Director and Samuel Flury as Administrative Director. The management has successfully led the foundation after the previous artistic and administrative director Christian Weidmann stepped down on October 1 last year after just over two years in office. The new management will take office on September 1.

After studying music and graduating in musicology and Italian literature at the University of Zurich, Barbara Widmer completed an MAS in cultural management at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. After various activities in the cultural sector, she has been working for the Fondazione per l'Orchestra della Svizzera italiana since 2010, first as artistic assistant, then as head of artistic production. In January 2022, she was appointed a member of the FOSI management. Since October 1, 2022, she has held the position of Artistic Director ad interim.

Samuel Flury, born in 1981, comes from Schaffhausen and Graubünden and grew up in Lugano, where he completed his studies in business administration and business law at SUPSI. He joined the Fondazione per l'Orchestra della Svizzera italiana in 2019 as Head of Operations and Finance and was later appointed Deputy Director. Since October 1, 2022, he has held the position of Administrative Director ad interim. Samuel Flury is also a lecturer in the Master's degree program in Business Law and White Collar Crime at the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI).

Simon Blatter was born in Brig in 1995. He began trumpet lessons at the age of nine at the Oberwallis General Music School. After completing his music baccalaureate at the Kollegium Spiritus Sanctus in Brig, he attended the Zurich University of the Arts, and from 2017 he completed his studies at the Basel University of Music. He is principal trumpeter of the Danish Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester and the Finnish Turku Philharmonic Orchestra. The prize is endowed with 10,000 Swiss francs.

Breaking isolation by sharing emotions in concerts and music workshops is the mission of the association "Les Concerts du Cœur". Founded in 2017 in Sierre by soprano Laure Barras, the association offers musical moments for people who have difficulty accessing concert halls, whether they are elderly, hospitalized, disabled or living in poverty.

The performances organized by the association "Les Concerts du Cœur" are part of a comprehensive cultural mediation. The various elements of the performances are designed for the different contexts and characteristics of the audience. The association also aims to open up new horizons for talented young musicians by introducing them to a social aspect of their profession.

At the start of the 2020/21 season, Märki took over the artistic direction of the Staatstheater Cottbus as artistic and opera director. The Staatstheater is the only multi-genre theater in the state of Brandenburg. With its artistic productions in the fields of musical theater, drama, ballet and concerts, it is also recognized beyond the region.

Born in Bern in 1955, Stephan Märki became director of the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1993. In 2000, he moved to the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle (DNT) in Weimar as General Director. In 2011 and 2012, he merged the Bern Symphony Orchestra and the Stadttheater Bern to form the four-genre Konzert Theater Bern. In 2012, he took over the management of the Konzert Theater Bern until his immediate resignation in 2018. His resignation was the result of a relationship with the theater's Head of Communications that was incompatible with the theater's governance.

It is important to people in Germany (91%) that cultural offerings in theaters are preserved for future generations. A large majority (76%) are also of the opinion that they should continue to be financed with public funds. The offerings are part of cultural identity (82%) and education (91%) in Germany. These are the findings of the new "Relevance Monitor Culture" conducted by the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Liz Mohn Center.

With the nationwide representative forsa survey, the Liz Mohn Center has for the first time investigated the importance of cultural offerings in Germany. The results show almost unanimous support among the population: the work of theaters is important, should be further promoted and preserved for the future.

Original article:
https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/themen/aktuelle-meldungen/2023/mai/enormer-rueckhalt-fuer-kulturangebote-in-deutschland

The team that conducted the study analyzed more than 23,000 songs that appeared in the weekly UK top charts from 1953 to 2019. It found that energetic, danceable songs that evoked positive feelings such as joy and happiness were positively associated with warm, sunny weather and negatively associated with rainy, cold weather. Similarly, in terms of expected seasonal patterns, the popularity of energetic and positive music increased in summer and decreased in winter.

However, the results also show that these results depend on the popularity of the respective songs: While the weather mainly had an influence on the placement in the top 10 of the charts, there was hardly any correlation for less popular songs. This suggests that weather conditions can help a song to the top of the charts under certain circumstances.

Original article:
https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/newsroom/news/news-artikel/article/here-comes-the-sun-de.html

Uri Smilansky was born and raised in Israel, where he studied violin, viola, composition, but above all recorder and viola da gamba. In 2001, he moved to Basel to study viola da gamba and baroque recorder at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he graduated with honors in 2006. He worked at the Schola as a project and teaching assistant and returned in 2015 to teach medieval aural training and ensemble work for a semester.

In 2010 he completed his doctorate on the music of the Ars Subtilior at the University of Exeter. This was followed by a postdoctoral position at Exeter on the edition of works by Guillaume de Machaut (2010-2014), a teaching position at Shakespeare's Globe (2015), a teaching fellowship at King's College London (2016-2019) and a second postgraduate research fellowship at the University of Oxford (2019-2022). Uri has published widely in academia and is a member of the board of the International Machaut Society.

In 2008 he co-founded a long-term teaching program at the Burgfürsteneck Academy for professional and musical-cultural further education, and since 2014 has been running shorter intensive courses as co-founder of Sherborne Early Music. He has performed and recorded a wide range of repertoire as a soloist and with groups such as Ensemble Leones, In Echo, the Taverner Consort and Players, Musicians of the Globe, La Morra, Earle his Viols, Perlaro, the Phoenix Ensemble and Dulce Melos. He is co-founder and director of the ensembles Le Basile and A Garden of Eloquence.

According to the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, the new string converts vibrations directly into an electrical signal: The string becomes its own pickup and is a microphone for vibrations and touch along its entire length. A special functional layer made of a polymer with so-called piezoelectric properties is responsible for this. Piezoelectricity is a phenomenon in which electrical voltage is generated when the pressure on the material is changed. When the string is played, the oscillating change in vibration creates a mechanical tension that makes it possible to obtain a clear signal of the respective tone.

The characteristic sound colorations that were previously produced by the resonating body can now be simulated and added electronically. Both the sound body and the reverberation in the room can be changed digitally at any time. According to the university, this enables a wide range of design options that are predetermined and unchangeable with traditional instruments.

Original article:
https://www.uni-weimar.de/de/medieninformationen/titel/musikinstrumente-mit-neuartigen-saiten-funktionieren-ohne-resonanzkoerper-und-tonabnehmer/

Born in 1986, Manuel Troller is active as a guitarist and composer in various musical fields, according to the city's press release. He impresses as a musician with determination, clarity, precision and ease. With the internationally active formation "SchnellerTollerMeier", he has been playing uncompromising music between free improvisation, hardcore, modern composition and brute rock music since 2006, but is also at home in pop music.

By "exploring the limits of his instrument using preparations, extended techniques, sound alienation and a keen sense for the moment", he has become a sought-after guitarist in Switzerland. The list of collaborations, concerts and invitations to national and international festivals is long and testifies to his extraordinary and astute musical artistry. In 2021, Troller was awarded the Swiss Music Prize.

According to the festival's press release, the 52-year-old Nordmann has been Artistic Director of the Konzerthaus and Konzerthausorchester Berlin since 2009. Following a multi-stage application process, the musicologist with a doctorate was unanimously elected as the new artistic director by the Lucerne Festival Board of Trustees on the recommendation of the search committee.

Sebastian Nordmann was born in Kiel in 1971 and studied musicology and modern history in Heidelberg and Berlin. He worked for two years as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Berlin, and in 2002 he took over the artistic direction and management of the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

In 2008, Nordmann was appointed Professor of Cultural Management at the Rostock University of Music and Drama. Since 2009, he has been the artistic director of the Konzerthaus and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin am Gendarmenmarkt. Sebastian Nordmann is married and has three children. As part of his new role, he will relocate from Berlin to the Lucerne region in due course.

Born in the USA, she is one of the world's most influential singers, having sold over 180 million records, but was also a successful actress. She became a Swiss citizen in 2013. In 2021, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern, according to the laudation for, among other things, "a unique musical and artistic life's work" and because she "successfully asserted herself as a woman in a previously male-dominated field".

Tina Turner gained her first singing experience in a Baptist church, from 1960 to 1976 she was a member of the duo Ike and Tina Turner, from the early 1980s she launched a successful international solo career as a singer, and later also as an actress. In Switzerland, she was also involved in the Beyond Foundation, a charitable foundation set up by Regula and Beat Curti in 2007, whose projects aim to "connect people around the world with the help of music".

Andreas Eduardo Frank, born in 1987, is a composer, performer, ensemble leader and festival organizer. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg and at the electronic studio of the Musikhochschule Basel. He works at various aesthetic interfaces, between real and virtual, music, performance, choreography, video and theater.

Andreas Eduardo Frank has received several awards for his work and is, for example, the winner of the 64th composition competition of the state capital Stuttgart. He has been artistic director of Ensemble Lemniscate Basel since 2018 and a member of the Rümlingen Festival program group since 2021.

Frank will manage Basel's Gare du Nord, a curated production and performance venue for the Swiss and international contemporary music scene, together with Johanna Schweizer (management) and Ursula Freiburghaus (collaborations).

The municipal council, the city's executive body, wants to further increase access to culture in all areas. With the first package of measures of the city-wide cultural strategy, fundamental prerequisites were created, which are sharpened and further developed in the present package of measures. Bern's culture should be "socially, economically and ecologically sustainable". During the pandemic, it has become abundantly clear that the social security of cultural workers must be improved, writes the Council.

The City of Bern's cultural strategy is designed to run for twelve years and shows how the city's cultural policy and cultural promotion will be shaped until 2028. Cultural production as the focal point of the city's cultural life is placed in a broader political and social context.

Part of the strategy is the newly conceived music ensemble sponsorship. Kultur Stadt Bern and the Office for Culture of the Canton of Berne jointly announce these, appoint a jury and decide on the award.

The package of measures:
Cultural_Strategy_City_of_Bern_Objectives_Measures_2023-2024_ES_medium.pdf

Dawidiuk played Beethoven's first piano concerto in Meiningen, where the competition was held, and conducted the orchestra at the same time. The special prizes, the Felix Draeseke Prize and the prize in cooperation with the Joachim Raff Society, enable him to give follow-up concerts. Aurel Dawidiuk is studying orchestral conducting with Christoph-Mathias Mueller and Johannes Schlaefli and piano with Till Fellner at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

The International Hans von Bülow Competition was held for the fourth time this year. In 2012, 2015 and 2018, it was organized by the International Hans von Bülow Society. Since 2021, the Max Reger Conservatory has been the organizer. Held in up to four rounds in the categories juniors, professionals and conducting from the piano, prize money totaling 50,000 euros, scholarships, CD recordings and follow-up concerts are awarded.