22 million teaching minutes from Bienne to Brienz
Around one million people live in the canton of Bern - and every year more than half a million lessons take place at the 28 recognized music schools. These are united in the Association of Bernese Music Schools (VBMS), which is chaired by Nicola von Greyerz. The managing director is Hans Peter Hess.
The canton of Bern is the second largest canton in Switzerland in terms of both area and population. It is geographically heterogeneous - flat, hilly or mountainous - and accordingly the cantonal territory includes cities and agglomerations as well as small hamlets. Another special feature of Bern is its bilingualism. "Cela ne nous pose pas de problème", says Hans Peter Hess, who himself lives in bilingual Nidau, with a grin. The very different educational concepts in the two language regions sometimes cause discussion in the canton - President Nicola von Greyerz sees this as an enrichment.
The current focus is on talent development at VBMS. "We have updated our concept and adapted it to the federal framework conditions," says Hans Peter Hess. Now it's all about implementation in the individual schools. He sees talent development as an important addition to broad-based development, even if it is time-consuming and is only aimed at a very small number of pupils. "I'm enthusiastic about it," he says. "With talent development, wanalog takes a big step forward in terms of musical education."
Another important topic is cooperation with the elementary school. "It's important to me that it doesn't depend on individual people whether this kind of collaboration takes place," says Nicole von Greyerz. Project-oriented collaboration works very well, for example in the context of musicals. The aim of the VBMS is to strengthen and institutionalize this collaboration. To this end, a new position for the coordination of music schools and elementary school was created at the beginning of 2023 - Isabelle Lehmann, deputy head of the Biel music school, was hired.
The financing of music education is also an issue in the canton of Bern. In addition to contributions from the municipalities and the canton (30%), parents pay an average of CHF 780.00. Music schools are fundamentally too expensive and a new system is needed, according to Hans Peter Hess. The "Finances" working group was therefore recently reactivated. This means that neither the VBMS Board nor the office will run out of work - although Hess will hand it over in summer 2023. The long-standing VMS delegate is retiring and is looking forward to devoting himself to making music again with a newly founded band.
