Reto Parolari receives Winterthur Culture Prize
The City Council is awarding the 2019 Culture Prize to conductor, composer and publisher Reto Parolari. In doing so, it is honoring a thoroughbred musician and recognized expert in sophisticated light music.
Reto Parolari first studied at the Musikhochschule Winterthur, then in Hanover, Stuttgart and Vienna. In 1973, he founded the Reto Parolari Symphony Orchestra with around forty musicians, which was dedicated to the cultivation and preservation of sophisticated light music. He has worked as a conductor with numerous orchestras in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, the Czech Republic and Austria and has realized TV and radio productions in the fields of popular music, operetta, film and musicals. As a composer and arranger, he has written several hundred works in the fields of serious and popular music, some of which have been published by his own publishing house, Edition Swiss Music.
In 1991, Reto Parolari founded the International Festival of Light Music, which was held annually in Winterthur until 2017 and developed into a well-known exchange for good underground music during this time. With the Reto Parolari Orchestra's sheet music archive, he looks after a unique musical collection that now comprises around 110,000 titles. Parolari also acted as a juror and gave symposia and workshops.
In 2004, he was awarded the Fondation Suisa Recognition Prize for his many years of work as a performer, author and publisher of upmarket light music. In 2015, he received the Carl Heinrich Ernst Art Prize for his life's work.
The Winterthur Culture Prize is endowed with 10,000 francs. With this award, the city council honors Reto Parolari's versatile and committed personality, whose work and charisma extends far beyond Winterthur. The award will be presented on December 3, 2019 at Theater Winterthur.
