Review and outlook

Lucerne is heading for the future. At the same time, hard work is being done on the present. It's like good music: the linear curves, the past is just beginning, the future is already over. Remembering, we listen ahead. We look ahead to our building site at Lucerne's South Pole, the new Lucerne Campus for Music. For the first time, jazz, church music, research, folk music, education, performance, classical music, school music and everything in between under one roof, in new spaces, in creative chaos. This should give rise to the culture of a contemporary music academy. Thinking about the future, we are dealing with the present: in 2017, we redesigned all of our Bachelor's degree programs, we fought off string concerts in the Precollege degree programs at the political level, and we shone in concerts together with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and at the Lucerne Festival. We staged music theater events with the Lucerne Theater and, together with colleagues from Ireland and Turkey, our folk music students created surprising fusion gigs at the Alpentöne festival. And the jazz big band toured halfway across Switzerland. We feel like colleagues on our real construction site and have a common score: we are "sur place", we are building new ideas and structures, we know that it goes from the bottom up and that every step needs to be considered. You can only get to the top without disaster if the foundations have been laid, if the content-related spaces have been realistically defined. Today, these should contain what we want to have in the end. On the surface, craftsmen, engineers and architects are building at the South Pole. Behind the scenes, lecturers, students, teachers, researchers and administrators are filling what is being created with content. Every little stone laid today will have an impact on the whole tomorrow.

Michael Kaufmann, Director of the Lucerne School of Music

I started the year with the serious intention of taking the first part of the music theory exam: Acoustics and Music History. The exam dates were at the beginning of May and the beginning of July. I also switched to Ting Sun as my main teacher at the beginning of the year. I got to know her as part of her accreditation and was immediately impressed by her way of teaching. At the end of February, I had a change of pace in my daily learning routine, a scenic opera course in Basel with Maria Gessler and Martin Kronthaler as well as the pianist Riccardo Bovino. We spent three days rehearsing opera scenes under the expert guidance of the lecturers. I received a lot of valuable input there. In spring, I attended the Music and Research module, which dealt with research topics and writing research papers. This module is attended by students in the classical profile as well as students in the jazz/pop profile. I found it very exciting to get an insight into other styles of music that this joint course offered. Before the summer vacation, I passed both exams and my knowledge of music history and acoustics had increased significantly. The fall brought a new opera course in Basel and a new module: Master's preparation in pedagogy. Next year, I will take the second part of the music theory exam and the remaining modules that are part of the degree course. But above all, singing!

Grete Einsiedler, Bachelor Classical Singing, Kalaidos University of Music

Sono una flautista all'ultimo anno del Bachelor of Arts in Music al Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. Questo corso ha arricchito notevolmente le mie conoscenze in campo musicale in generale e flautistico in particolare. Among gli eventi più significativi dell'anno accademico appena trascorso, spicca a mio avviso l'incontro con uno dei flautisti più importanti nel panorama musicale attuale: il primo flauto dei Berliner Philharmoniker, Emmanuel Pahud. Questa non è stata sicuramente la prima volta in cui abbiamo avuto l'opportunità di confrontarci con musicisti di livello eccelso. Noi studenti, in fact, apart from being followed by maestri di fama internazionale, spesso seguiamo masterclasses con concertisti importanti. For example, some members of the pianoforte class have followed several times corsi e concerti by the famous pianist Martha Argerich. Sicuramente l'anno accademico 2017/2018 non sarà meno stimolante del precedente. As far as I am concerned, there will be some very interesting courses, including one in collaboration with the students of DEASS (SUPSI), which will provide concerts for people in a state of poverty and difficulty (at the theater of the Centro Sociale di Mendrisio). Inoltre, il 12 febbraio al LAC, sarò impegnata in una delle numerose produzioni orchestrali del conservatorio. To finish, at the end of my formative course, I had the opportunity to perform in a concerto solistico at the conservatory on the morning of June. However, I did not realize all the events that inspired me this year. Il conservatorio infatti riserva ai suoi iscritti numerose sorprese!

Chiara Ritoni, studentessa del Bachelor of Arts in Music, flautista

To look back on the past year is to discover the wealth and variety of artistic projects realized by the HEMU through the many videos and photos published. The partnerships are numerous: with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Lausanne Opera, the Société de Musique Contemporaine, the Archipel Festival, the Cully Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, to name but a few. These collaborations allow our students to meet renowned artists and build a strong network at the start of their careers. In March 2017, the HEMU and the EJMA welcomed the Montreux Jazz Academy, which selected one HEMU student from among its six candidates for a creation week with six international jazz icons. In the series Le Flon Autrement, a carte blanche was awarded to the brilliant mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti, who sang her creativity on the theme of Love has no borders. La cantatrice was also very much in evidence during the first edition of the Kattenburg Competition, a new addition to the French-speaking world of lyric singing and based on the desire to create a unique meeting point between HEMU students and their alumni. De quoi entrer en 2018 avec énergie pour nos étudiants et étudiantes ! The year will open with several conferences on current music topics in January 2018 and an innovative workshop aimed at exploring the question of leadership in orchestras in an interactive way. April 2018 will mark the return of the HEMU Jazz Orchestra to the Cully Jazz Festival, and we can only advise you to follow the announcement of the program in advance.

Haute École de Musique de Lausanne

(HEMU)

At the beginning of June, the HKB percussion class played drumming by Steve Reich under the direction of Brian Archinal at the "HKB geht an Land" festival in St. Imier. In September, I took part in the Student Competition of the Eastern Switzerland Soloist and Ensemble Competition, where I won first prize, and finally I was part of the project at the Bern Music Festival for the performance of Gerard Grisey's Le Noir de l'Étoileconducted by Pascal Viglino and Benoît Piccand, for six percussionists in the emblematic Reithalle Bern. The many impressions I gained from my encounters with contemporary music and music education showed me new ways of seeing and playing, which flow into my current work and make it more profound and nuanced.

Mirco Huser, percussion student at HKB in the classes of Brian Archinal, Jochen Schorer and Christian Hartmann

In Les Indes galantesthe opéra ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau, describes the practice of love in distant lands - it is the European view of the foreign. But Rameau was also a music theorist and influential cultural politician. All in all, a perfect launch pad for a major multidisciplinary project that can be experienced at four venues around Ostermundigenstrasse 103, the new location of the HKB Department of Music. A high-tech auditorium, an old lecture hall, an empty shed hall, a theater hall and various connecting paths will be impressively staged by director Joachim Schloemer with around 50 students and lecturers. However, there will be little baroque music to be heard - rather, students from music, theater, literature, opera, design and art, sound arts and other fields will compose, build, stage, interpret, mediate and librettize large parts of this HKB laboratory. It's a wild affair, topical and dramatic, poetic and enriched with culinary delights. L'Europe sauvageis an obligatory announcement for a wonderful spectacle in the industrial gallows field.

Peter Kraut, Deputy Head of the Department of Music, Bern University of the Arts

I get very excited every time I have an opportunity to perform in music projects: Playing chamber music, performing contemporary music, playing in the orchestra... In 2017, I had the honor of playing a debut concert at the Lucerne Festival together with my colleague, saxophonist Valentine Michaud, and representing my university there. Together we form the duo AKMI and made our international debut in Russia and the USA, performing the premiere of Kevin Juillerat's L'étang du Patriarche which was composed especially for our duo. I was also very busy with chamber music and contemporary music. I played with my colleagues from the ZHdK as part of "Prelude" and "Surprise" in the Tonhalle, performed new compositions by ZHdK students and gained a lot of experience in the process. The ZHdK also gave me the opportunity to present my ideas in the final recital on the subject of Crossover so I performed the Concerto for two pianos and percussion op. 104 (from 2002) by Nikolai Kapustin, a piece I had wanted to play for a long time. In 2018, I will take the opportunity to continue playing interesting concerts and gain new musical experience. As always, there will be projects with the Ensemble Arc-en-Ciel, the ZHdK orchestra, as well as concerts at the Braunwald Music Week, the Lilienberg Recital and the Maison Blanche, a workshop with Brett Dean and much more.

Akvile Sileikaite, Master Specialized Music Performance, Piano, Zurich University of the Arts

In Basel, singing was the focus of important projects by the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) and the Hochschule für Musik (HSM) in 2017. Some of these were jointly organized by the two institutes, such as the inspiring courses by long-standing guest lecturer Margreet Honig, a masterclass with Christine Schäfer and the project Lament in cooperation with the Gare du Nord. Under this title, Désirée Meiser combined parts from Monteverdi's Orfeo and Sciarrino's Luci mie traditrici to a music theater production that was performed under the musical direction of Giorgio Paronuzzi and Jürg Henneberger and was also part of the program for the 150th anniversary of the Musik-Akademie Basel. Lament was the third opera project at the HSM, after Richard Ayres The recovery of the cricket at the Theater Basel and a project week by Regina Heer on Le nozze di Figaro. The anniversary year was celebrated with a world premiere by Rudolf Kelterborn Musica profana for soprano, baritone and three instrumental ensembles under the direction of Heinz Holliger. Other former Basel directors and professors were on the program in a choral concert under the direction of Raphael Immoos. At the SCB, the questions of historical singing always remain at the center. A CD (Label: Glossa) of the ensemble Profeti della Quinta with music of the early 17th century from the pen of the mysterious "Carlo G." has shed light on the ornamentation practice of this source; ensemble projects in Bogotá and a Senfl concert in Basel (27.1.2018) strive for performances from original choirbook notation and in the project "Studio 31" (SCB/HSM) polyphonic music is experimentally tested and performed in the vocal ensemble.

Basel Academy of Music (FHNW), Basel University of Music, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, School of Early Music

After 2016 ended with the vote of the General Assembly of the United Nations, which provided the City of Music with a site close to its headquarters in Geneva, 2017 will end with the announcement of the winner of the international architecture competition by invitation for its construction. Les bureaux de Pierre-Alain Dupraz (Geneva) and Gonçalo Byrne (Lisbon), as well as Nagata Acoustics (responsible notamment de la Philharmonie de Paris, de l'Elbphilharmonie à Hambourg et de la salle Boulez de Berlin) se sont associés pour concevoir un grand ensemble comprenant une salle philharmonique de 1700 places (siège de l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande), une salle de récital d'environ 450 places, une salle lyrique d'environ 250 places et une blackbox destinée aux spectacles expérimentaux, ainsi que la totalité des activités de la Haute école de musique de Genève. Magnifiquely situated at the heart of international Geneva, making the most of the interactions between its various occupants and widely open to the region and the world, the Cité de la musique will open its doors in 2023.

The main challenge for the Haute école de musique in 2018 will also be real estate, with the renovation and refurbishment of the historic building on Place Neuve and the remodeling of its production activities in various halls in Geneva, which will allow it to be even more in touch with the population and consolidate its own identity.

Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève