Summery sound views

Matthias von Orelli - Summertime is semester break time. Nevertheless, the Swiss music academies offer a rich program, go out of the schools or cooperate with festivals that take place in summer and early autumn. The Tour d'horizon is intended to arouse curiosity to visit some of these events.

The Biennale Basel Plucks was launched in 2013 and will take place for the third time this year at the Musik-Akademie Basel under the artistic direction of Peter Croton. The aim of this festival is to illustrate the richness and diversity of the Basel masters and talents of the plucking guild. Renowned international guests round off the colorful and rich program, which will take place in 2017 under the theme of Collaborations. With its music schools in Basel and Riehen, the Jazzcampus and the FHNW Academy of Music, Hochschule für Musik and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the Musik-Akademie is virtually predestined for such a biennial, because in addition to the big names, young talent should also be able to participate, be involved and perform.

Basel Plucks, September 27 to October 1 at the Musik-Akademie Basel

In September, the Musik-Akademie Basel celebrates its 150th anniversary and invites the whole city to join in as a highlight on September 23, 2017. From morning to evening, a wide variety of ensembles will perform music from all genres and eras, interpreted by teachers, lecturers, pupils and students. Government and academy representatives will address the guests at the official ceremony in St. Martin's Church. A commissioned composition by jazz musician Guillermo Klein will be premiered. The event is intended to highlight what the Music Academy has been bringing to the city of Basel for 150 years: music, music, music.

Jour de Fête, big party at the Basel Music Academy, September 23, 2017

The Bern University of the Arts (HKB) works together with culturally interested communities in the Canton of Bern on the HKB geht an Land program, with the aim of getting out of the city. This year, the HKB is visiting the Vallon de Saint-Imier. The students are exploring the industrial and even anarchist past of the Bernese-Jurassic communities around the Chasseral and are given the opportunity to open up the spaces of former factories and reinterpret and revitalize them. The projects are also intended to initiate ideas for the future use of industrial buildings that have lost their function in many places. Musically, for example, students from the piano class can be heard interpreting Russian and regional composers in the non-classical setting of the Saint-Imier abattoir. The local population is also invited to perform experimental music in these spaces under the direction of percussion lecturers.

> hkbgehtanland.ch

The summer also sees the start of two master classes at the BUA's Department of Music. In July with Benjamin Schmid (violin), Thomas Riebl (viola) and Peter Bruns (cello), in August with the low brass professors Ian Bousfield (trombone), Thomas Rüedi (euphonium) and Rex A. Martin (tuba). The two master classes take place as part of the Simmenklänge HKB talauf - an extremely fruitful collaboration between the Lenk Cultural Foundation and the HKB.

Lenk, July 3 to 7, 2017 or August 21 to 26, 2017

At the opening of the 2017/2018 season, the Haute école de musique de Genève (HEM) presents a production of Kiss me, Kate by Cole Porter, the "ancestor of musical comedies" and one of the greatest musical successes of the post-war period. It is a show that perfectly combines classical and boulevard theater, while on the musical side it brings together opera, music hall and revue. Sous la direction artistique de Marcin Habela, la régie de Christian Räth et la direction musicale de Nader Abbassi, l'orchestre de la HEM accompagne les chanteurs des écoles de musique de la Romandie. This HEM production was staged in collaboration with the Théâtre du Galpon and the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne (HEMU).

Théâtre du Galpon, Geneva, from 15 to 24 September 2017

As part of the annual orchestral academy of the HEM and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR), the orchestra of the HEM, enriched by soloists from the OSR, will perform under the direction of the young Erik Nielsen, originally from the United States. Les musiciens joueront des œuvres de compositeurs originaires de l'Iowa à l'instar de Nielsen : la Suite de ballet Billy the Kid d'Aaron Copland ainsi que la Symphonie n° 2 pour orchestre de Charles Ives. Ces concerts seront donnés dans le cadre de la série de concerts Prélude.

Victoria Hall, Geneva, 19 octobre 2017

L'opéra inconnu Ascanio de Camille Saint-Saëns sera interprété à Genève pour la première fois dans sa version concertante sur la base du manuscrit original de 1888. Guillaume Tourniaire en assurera la direction musicale et l'orchestre de la HEM jouera accompagné par divers solistes internationaux.

Grand Théâtre de Genève, 24 et 26 novembre 2017

In July and September, the Kalaidos University of Music presents concerts in unusual places. As part of the series Musik ver-rückt: Konzerte an ungewöhnlichen Orten, piano and chamber music will be performed at the Ernst Schweizer Metallbau company in Hedingen. Or the young piano students Laetitia and Philip Hahn will perform at Bischofszell Nahrungsmittel AG. An opera and operetta evening will also take place at the Hotel Blume in Baden.

Hedingen, July 7, 2017

Bischofszell, September 3, 2017

Hotel Blume Baden, September 7, 2017

In August there will also be auditions for a Master's degree in Performance or a Master's degree in Specialized Performance Singing with Christiane Oelze and Jan-Hendrik Rootering.

Winterthur, August 22, 2017

Dans le cadre de la collaboration entre le Montreux Jazz Festival et la Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne (HEMU), l'HEMU Jazz Orchestra interprète un program intitulé V comme Vian, a tribute to the famous French writer and poet Boris Vian, who was one of the emblematic figures of Parisian jazz in the 1950s. Les arrangements musicaux sont l'œuvre de Philip Henzi, professeur au département Jazz de la HEMU, avec l'appui de Florian Marques, d'Yves Marcotte et de Matthieu Durmarque, tous étudiants en classe Master de composition. The interpretation of these pieces by the young musicians of the HEMU Jazz Orchestra provides a new interpretation of Boris Vian's music, without any retouching of the original words or notes. Les œuvres transpirent le talent extraordinaire de Vian, son penchant pour l'absurde et sa passion pour le jazz de Duke Ellington.

Hôtel des Trois Couronnes, Vevey, 1er juillet 2017

Les concerts interprétés par les élèves de l'HEMU dans le cadre des concerts gratuits Music in the Parc sont également le fruit de la collaboration avec le Montreux Jazz Festival.

The teaching of contemporary music has been part of the HEMU's program since 2016. The group The Hemulators proposes an electro-rock concert; it stems from the work of students who have followed this course. The program also includes a funk soul project with Dave De Vita as well as the formation El Gran Combo Caliente, an Afro-Cuban musical project dedicated to the great masters of salsa.

Parc Vernex, Montreux Jazz Festival, 4 juillet 2017

A inizio luglio è previsto a Lugano-Besso il concerto degli studenti del Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana che hanno ottenuto il Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance e che suoneranno come solisti con l'Orchestra della Svizzera italiana. Sotto la direzione di Alexander Vedernikov, si esibiranno Charles Crabtree (corno), Ekaterina Valiulina (violino), Anton Jablokov (violino) e Daniel Tengberg (violoncello). 

Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano-Besso, 3 luglio 2017, ore 20.30

Qualche giorno dopo si potrà assistere al concerto dell'Orchestra sinfonica del Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana accompagnata dagli studenti della Scuola universitaria di musica di Lugano. Sotto la direzione della maestra Xian Zhang, presenteranno il concerto per orchestra (Sz 116) di Béla Bartók e Scheherazade op. 35 di Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov. 

Chiesa San Francesco Locarno, 7 luglio 2017, ore 20.30; LAC Lugano, 8 luglio 2017, ore 19.00

This year, the Alpentöne festival will once again take place in Altdorf, with the Lucerne School of Music as a cooperation partner. In this context, a university conference on transculturality in music will also be held under the title "Folk music without borders?

Altdorf, August 17 and 18, 2017

An international university meeting with workshops and concerts by student ensembles will also be held as part of this festival. Participants include the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance from Limerick, the Codarts-Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Rotterdam and the Institute for Jazz and Folk Music at the Lucerne School of Music.

Altdorf, August 19, 2017

The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts is also collaborating with the Lucerne Festival again this year for the staged concert Dies irae with music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, George Crumb, Michael Hersch, Antonio Lotti, Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, Giacinto Scelsi and Galina Ustwolskaja. The JACK Quartet, the Lucerne Festival Alumni Ensemble and various students of the Lucerne School of Music will be performing. The concert was conceived by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who is also the artistic director of the concert.

Lucerne, September 2, 2017

Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) is enriching the time between the summer and fall vacations with the Summer School 2017. In the field of music, the course Interactive Creation & Notation - for sounds, visuals & live performance offers an insight into forms of cooperation between music, visual arts and scenic forms in space. Musical settings between improvisation and composition are practically explored and expanded through interaction with visual media and live performance. The course provides impulses, tools, notation possibilities and targeted coaching for the introduction and realization of own projects, compositions and concepts with musical, visual and scenic interaction.

ZHdK Zurich, September 8, 9 and 10, 2017

The ZHdK Highlights festival also takes place in September. It is an attempt to show a "best of" from semester and final projects from all areas of the university. There will be exhibitions, concerts, presentations, performances and interventions in eight exhibition and performance spaces throughout the Toni-Areal, presented by students and graduates of the 2017 academic year from more than twenty degree programs.

ZHdK Zurich, September 2 to 23, 2017

At the semester opening concert entitled what's now?, Ensemble Boswil will present a program of rhythmically and temporally differentiated works by two ZHdK lecturers (Isabel Mundry and Philippe Kocher) and two composers from the classical American avant-garde (John Cage and Elliott Carter).

ZHdK Zurich, September 18, 2017