Using artificial intelligence methods, a possible version of the symphony was created from Beethoven's existing musical sketches. To do this, the available data from Beethoven - symphonies, music sketches and scores - first had to be analyzed and prepared in a machine-readable format. The appropriate machine learning method was then selected and its algorithms adapted to the task. Language processing algorithms were used.

Under the direction of Matthias Röder from the Karajan Institute and The Mindshift agency, the team consisted of musicologist and Beethoven expert Robert Levin, Ahmed Elgammal (AI expert at Rutgers University), Mark Gotham (composition theorist at Cornell University), Walter Werzowa (composer) and Christine Siegert (Head of Research at the Beethoven-Haus). The work is to be performed by the Bonn Beethoven Orchestra in April 2020.

Original article:
https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/themenspecials/special-beethoven-jubilaeumsjahr/details/kuenstliche-intelligenz-soll-beethovens-zehnte-sinfonie-vollenden-587346

According to the organizers, the concerts will be curated for the second time by Stephen Johns, Artistic Director of London's Royal College of Music (RCM). This year's guest conductors are Mark Biggins from the English National Opera and Felix Bagge from Lund University. The three young soloists, Julieth Lozano (soprano), Theodor Uggla (tenor) and Emily Sun (violin), have close links with the RCM. Jonathan Radford, an internationally renowned saxophonist, the RCM Chamber Ensemble, the Lund Switzerland Singers and the Klosters Festival Singers will also be performing.

Interview with Stephen Johns

In an in-depth interview with Veronika Studer-Kovacs, the artistic director of the Klosters Music Festival talks about developments in the classical music business, interpretation, the role of music festivals and his personal taste in music.

Link to the interview

In June 2018, the government of the canton of St. Gallen issued an ordinance setting the school fees to be paid by the school authority if a schoolchild attends the recognized talent school of another school authority. The city of St.Gallen lodged an appeal against this with the Federal Supreme Court, citing municipal autonomy. The court has now dismissed the appeal and found that the government was right to regulate the school fees by ordinance and to assess the amount correctly. Talent school providers may neither demand higher school fees from the school provider nor a contribution towards tuition from the parents.

The City of St.Gallen had caused uncertainty with regard to the school fees owed by issuing invoices to the school authorities that deviated from the cantonal requirements. It had also demanded a contribution towards tuition from the parents of the talented pupils. The Federal Supreme Court has now clarified that neither is permissible. In view of the constitutional guarantee that primary school lessons are free of charge, parents cannot be asked to contribute to the cost of lessons. They can only be charged for expenses incurred for the promotion of specific talents, such as instrumental lessons.

Thomas Pauli-Gabi's tenure as Head of the Culture Department included various major projects. One of Thomas Pauli-Gabi's main concerns was to give cantonal cultural policy a broad-based, strategic direction with the development and implementation of a cantonal cultural concept.

With various projects, Thomas Pauli-Gabi and his team helped to strengthen the canton of Aargau's self-image as a cultural canton. In 2015, for example, the canton celebrated the cantonal commemoration of 600 years of Aargau in the Swiss Confederation with the participation of the regions, a "Double Door" mediation concept was developed for the Jewish-Christian cultural heritage in Surbtal, a cantonal theme year "IndustrieWelt Aargau" was initiated in 2019/2020 and several cultural construction projects, such as the new Stapferhaus in Lenzburg and the Alte Reithalle in Aarau, were actively promoted.
 

The project deals with cableways in the canton of Uri and consists of two parts. The first part examines from a historical perspective how the development of the Alpine region by cable cars has changed the lives of the population, the use of mountain goods and the landscape itself over the past hundred years or so. In the second part of the project, a composition will be created from typical cable car noises, which will ultimately be presented to the public as a sound installation.

Romed Aschwanden, Managing Director of the Uri Institute Cultures of the Alps at the University of Lucerne, is responsible for the historical research. The researcher not only wants to use historical sources, but also conduct interviews with contemporary witnesses.

The musical part will be performed by Michel Roth. The composer, who grew up in the canton of Uri, is Professor of Composition and Music Theory, Analysis and Composition at the FHNW School of Music. Boris Previšić from the University of Lucerne is also involved in the project. The Swiss National Science Foundation is supporting the interdisciplinary cable car project with a grant. The project will be launched at the beginning of February and will be completed within a year.
 

The new platform is intended to bring the Norient community of over 700 artists from 50 countries closer together, generate commissions, pay fair fees and present their ideas for the future to a broad public.

However, this is all dependent on a successful crowdfunding campaign, which Norient will launch on the Startnext platform, write those responsible. If Norient survives, the 10th edition of the Norient Film Festival (NFF) will take place in Bern and Lausanne in January and February 2021.

As an oboe virtuoso with a worldwide reputation, Holliger experimented with advanced playing techniques, writes the University of Basel. He also rediscovered some forgotten musicians of the 18th century and inspired important contemporary composers to write new works.

As a composer, the 80-year-old explores the boundaries of sound and language, and as a conductor and organizer, he is committed to Basel's musical culture through significant institutional and artistic impulses.

Other honorary doctorates from Basel went to the pastor Martin Stingelin, the entrepreneur Klaus Endress and three researchers from the USA: the lawyer Bryan A. Stevenson, the cell biologist Randy W. Schekman and the psychologist Jerome R. Busemeyer.

According to Samuel Mehr from Harvard University, dance music is fast and rhythmic, while lullabies are soft and slow - this applies worldwide. In addition, keys have been found in all cultures: the structure of small sequences of notes from a base note as in the Western diatonic scale. Compared to love songs, songs that are supposed to contribute to healing usually consist of a few closely spaced notes. These findings suggest that there are indeed universal characteristics to music that may have basic commonalities - a fundamental human musicality.

In a Science Perspective article in the same issue, Tecumseh Fitch and Tudor Popescu from the University of Vienna comment on the conclusions. Human musicality is fundamentally based on a small number of fixed pillars: hard-coded predispositions given to humans by the ancient physiological infrastructure of our shared biology. These musical pillars are then flavored with the idiosyncrasies of each individual culture, resulting in the kaleidoscopic assortment we find in world music.

Original article:
W. Tecumseh Fitch, Tudor Popescu; Science, 2019
Published in the magazine's 'Perspectives' article series.
DOI: 10.1126/science.aay2214
 

Hunziker impressed the jury with his interpretation of blues rock classics such as "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Shame" as well as his own composition "Wasting Time", in which he also appeared as a singer. Andrea F.G. Raschèr, President of the MKZ Foundation, even thought he had heard "a young Jeff Beck". Dan Hunziker is studying at MKZ Pre-College with the aim of passing on his love of music and his knowledge as a guitar teacher in the not too distant future.

The MKZ sponsorship prizes are awarded annually for "outstanding artistic achievement" and are endowed with CHF 3000 prize money each. This prize money provided by the MKZ Sponsorship Foundation is tied to a musical purpose (master classes, CD productions or similar).
 

Indeed, one thinks of battles when listening to this powerful and often brutal music. The CD released by Neos offers two major works: the ensemble piece with the same title Combat actions/trauma actions op. 11 (1995/98) and a Chamber symphony "A végső Tavasz" op. 23 (2009/2011). Both can hardly be reduced to a common denominator. A ritually serious tone is always present, but Jorge E. López cultivates an incredibly flexible compositional style.

The Chamber Symphony underlines López's aesthetic attitude: "I have never identified with the term 'new music'. Rather, from the very beginning I was driven by the idea of making the ancient present. I'm not looking for the new, but rather for the repressed." There are ludicrous references to Gustav Mahler, Beethoven and Gustav Holst. With mannerist artistry, López achieves a bizarre, even fantastic feat.

The Collegium Novum Zürich under the direction of Jonathan Stockhammer plays very accurately, with great attention to detail and at the same time powerfully in the right places. Leslie Leon sings the lines by the Hungarian poet Endre Ady in the Chamber Symphony expressive, but is also able to switch to an ironically distanced tone. A furious recording quality by Swiss radio SRF and an informative, easy-to-read booklet text by Jens Schubbe round off the outstanding impression.

Duo Praxedis unites the harp with the piano. The two performers Praxedis Hug-Rütti (harp) and Praxedis Geneviève Hug (piano) dedicate their latest CD to the composer Carl Rütti, who is celebrating his 70th birthday. This is not just a "family" gesture for their brother and uncle, but an interesting and musically committed joint work.

Carl Rütti has made a name for himself internationally as a composer. Although he has extended his work to all musical areas except opera, his focus is on polyphonic, technically demanding and tonally refined works for top British choirs. Since studying in London, Rütti has been closely associated with the choral scene there, often writing on their behalf.

As a versatile pianist, Rütti was also a sought-after piano teacher at the Zurich Conservatory and works as an organist in Oberägeri. As a composer, he has so many requests that he can pick and choose. No wonder, because his music is tonal yet modern, rhythmically refined, has drive and poetry, and it sounds good. In 2005, Rütti received the Canton of Zug Recognition Award and in 2015 the Orlando di Lasso Medal for his extensive artistic output.

To mark his milestone birthday, oratorio concerts with various world premieres in Zug, Zurich, Basel, Germany, Sweden and the UK are planned. He will also be presenting his latest CD. The recorded pieces are mainly arrangements of his choral works. Rütti has always been interested in unusual instrumentations, such as the harp and piano in this case. With subtle intuition, he knows how to cleverly combine the plucked and strummed string sound. The booklet reveals another of Rütti's "spiritual" sources of inspiration: the poet and nun Silja Walter (1919-2011), many of whose works he set to music. Her poems are printed, although the pieces are not sung. Another "spiritual" poet of his taste is the pastor Ulrich Knellwolf.

What is surprising is that these arrangements hardly suggest the limitation to the small instrumentation of harp and piano. The harpist Praxedis Hug-Rütti knows how to use Rütti's broad spectrum of moods and tone colors, for example in the piece dedicated to her Harp booklet with a sure instinct. The inclusion of the piano, carefully and sparingly handled by Rütti, also reveals its poetic power through the pianist's sensitive playing. An appealing birthday present, also for harp fans.

The Beethoven Year 2020 has long been casting its shadow and the music publishers naturally don't want to be left behind.

The Wiener Urtext-Edition has just published the complete piano sonatas in three volumes, the first of which is available here: a thick book that only contains sonatas 1 to 11, but about 80 pages of critical notes (UT 50427). Henle-Verlag is trying to take advantage of the moment with anthologies of lighter and popular works. Not a bad idea! Unfortunately, Murray Perahia's fingerings are often awkward and complicate what is actually a wonderfully clear score. (Five easy piano sonatas, HN 1391; Five famous piano sonatas, HN 1392)

That leaves Bärenreiter-Verlag, which has just published the last three sonatas in individual editions. All have an informative introduction, notes on performance practice and a detailed critical commentary. There are also illustrations in all three volumes which impressively document Beethoven's impulsive notation. Only a few unnecessary careless errors mar the impression of a very carefully prepared edition. In the German translation of the preface, for example, Opus 110 is occasionally confused with Opus 109. Also, the expression "cheerfully relaxed" is probably not appropriate for the concluding variation movements of the E major and C minor sonatas.

It is also claimed that Antonia von Brentano is regarded by current research as the mysterious "immortal lover". This is very controversial. After all, the Sonata op. 109 is dedicated to Brentano's daughter Maximiliane, while op. 111 was finally dedicated to Archduke Rudolph. The English first edition still reads: To Madame Antonia de Brentano. (Opus 109: BA 10854; Opus 111: BA 11813)

And the Sonata in A flat major op. 110? This perhaps most enigmatic of all piano sonatas bears no dedication. This fact inspired the Beethoven biographer Jan Caeyers to come up with a very daring but plausible thesis, which is presented in his book Beethoven. The lone revolutionary can be read here. We won't reveal any more at this point ...

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Piano in A flat major op. 110, edited by Jonathan Del Mar, BA 11812, € 6.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

MvO - Laurence Desarzens has been active in the Swiss music scene for over 30 years: as program manager at the Rote Fabrik, Moods (Zurich) and Kaserne Basel. She has been head of the pop and jazz department at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne, HEMU, since 2016. In her view, the Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ primarily emphasizes the idea of cooperation, which is why the Association of Directors of Swiss Jazz Schools DKSJ was founded to facilitate exchange between the various universities. Each year, the focus is on a different music academy; in 2019 it was the Lucerne School of Music. Under the DKSJ label, the five jazz departments of the Swiss music universities present the joint All Star Project every year. Under the direction of Irish bassist and composer Ronan Guilfoyle, ten selected students spent three rehearsal days working on his arrangements of Jack Bruce's music as well as his compositions, which were created in honor of the 100th anniversary of Thelonious Monk's birth. They presented the program at five concerts in the cities of the participating music academies. In this way, the students gain experience with other institutions, but also come into contact with other artists and performers. For Laurence Desarzens, this collaboration creates a studio spirit that is very valuable for everyone involved. In the end, it is primarily about one thing: promoting young jazz talent in Switzerland, which is why the DKSJ project will continue to be pursued in the coming years; in 2020, for example, the focus will be on "Women in Jazz". This project, called "Jazzlab", was initiated by the Helvetiarockt association and the jazz departments of the HKB Bern and the HEMU together with the Cully Jazz Festival.

Florentin Setz is currently studying for a Master of Arts in Music - Pedagogy at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK. He is being taught jazz trombone by Bernhard Bamert and is also studying Indian rhythm with Ruven Ruppik and piano lessons with Chris Wiesendanger. As a next step, he wants to complete his Master's degree in Pedagogy next year and benefit and learn as much as possible from the ZHdK's program during the last two years. He does not yet know whether he wants to do another Master's degree after the Master's in Education. His goal is clear: to establish himself as a freelance musician in the Swiss music scene as a trombonist, bandleader and conductor. He hopes to be able to play as many concerts as possible with his projects and present his own music to a wide audience. The Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ offers a wonderful opportunity for this. These unique opportunities can sometimes give rise to bands that make music together over several years and develop together. So it's clear that he sees the Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ as a springboard for his own band "MEDEA". He really likes the idea of presenting a bachelor project from a Swiss jazz school in a different Swiss city each time, as this allows you to network and get to know the music of other artists.

Hannes Wittwer has been studying for a Master's degree in Music Pedagogy (MA Music Pedagogy) in jazz with drums as his main instrument since this fall. His long-term goal (similar to many young musicians in his environment) is to be able to teach part-time and also work on his artistic projects as a composer, bandleader or sideman. There is also the possibility that he will venture into journalistic, academic or transdisciplinary areas of culture at some point, as he also has interests in these fields - but for the time being, teaching and artistic activities clearly have priority. Hannes Wittwer was able to organize, design and moderate a panel for this year's Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ. Andrina Bollinger and Philipp Hillebrand, a graduate of the ZHdK jazz department, were invited to speak on topics such as "Things to consider in the music business after graduation" and "Opportunities and risks of studying jazz". This was followed by a discussion round with the guests involved. For Wittwer, the Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ is important for improving and consolidating the networking of Swiss jazz academies. In his own experience, he has observed that students from the individual universities, even within German-speaking Switzerland, rarely venture to other cities, whether for concerts, masterclasses, panels, jam sessions etc. The Röstigraben seems to be very present here too. Although he maintains individual contacts from French-speaking Switzerland, he hardly knows "what's going on there", as he says. It is also difficult for students from French-speaking Switzerland to get concerts in German-speaking Switzerland - and vice versa. It is not easy for Hannes Wittwer to find reasons why, even in small Switzerland, where you could actually be in all the larger jazz cities in one or two hours, everyone is working in their "own little garden". One reason could be that most jazz scenes, especially Zurich, already have such a large (over)range of curricula, culture and opportunities and are so busy with themselves that at the end of the day there is not much time left to network with people from Basel or Bern. Wittwer can only speculate as to whether social media plays a more beneficial or detrimental role in networking and exchange. The DKSJ directors' conference is therefore an important pillar in bringing people together and softening the individual jazz scene boundaries somewhat. However, the willingness to exchange ideas must not only come from "above", but also from the student base, and in his opinion there is definitely still some catching up to do here.

Tom Arthurs has been in Bern since the beginning of 2018 and enjoys the rich diversity of Swiss musical life, from the "Zoom In" and "Jazzwerkstatt" festivals in Bern to the Bern Music Festival, "unerhört" in Zurich and "earweare" in Biel. But he is also enthusiastic about the wonderful variety of incredible musicians who teach every week at the HKB, "his" music academy, including Colin Vallon, Andreas Schaerer, Patrice Moret, Julian Sartorius and Tom Arthur's colleague Brit Django Bates. For him, jazz and improvised music are today an indispensable and forward-looking part of international contemporary music-making and education in general and are therefore also of great importance within the Conference of Swiss Music Universities. The DKSJ has now been in existence for several years and offers a fruitful platform for cooperation, exchange and solidarity between Bern, Zurich, Lausanne, Lucerne and Basel - five jazz schools with very different profiles, but nevertheless with many common goals and concerns. In his view, the Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ is a wonderful annual gathering. Arthurs is delighted when the All Star Project unites musicians from all the schools in a large ensemble that tours Switzerland for five evenings, led by an international guest artist. Before Ronan Guilfoyle, these have included Sylvie Courvoisier, Rudi Mahall and Erik Truffaz. In Bern this year, the band played in the beautiful surroundings of the BeJazz Club in Bern. A great thing for Tom Arthurs (also in view of the fact that exceptional Bachelor projects are selected every year) and unique in Switzerland, because ultimately it's about one thing: collaboration, networking and - music.

Gregor Hilbe (he was a member of the Vienna Art Orchestra, won the 2006 World Music Prize with the project "TangoCrash" and has recorded numerous albums) was head of the percussion class and the Producing/Performance course at the Jazzcampus of the Basel Music Academy until 2016. He has been head of the Jazz & Pop profile at the ZHdK since 2016. He also enjoys working with the other jazz departments at Swiss music academies, which is reflected in the regular meetings and diverse collaborations. For the Exchange and the All Star Project, the processes at the Swiss Exchange Festival are now well known, which ultimately also benefits the students. Hilbe hopes that even more Bachelor's students will show an interest in these extraordinary events in the future. For him, the potential of these projects lies above all in the fact that students can get to know their professional colleagues and thus gain important professional experience alongside their studies. Nevertheless, he is satisfied with the development of recent years and confirms that the formats should be further enhanced in the future in order to be successful across the board. The current success can also be read in the current feedback, which has been exclusively positive, so that we can look to the future with confidence.

The jazz departments enjoy a good standing within the KMHS, but for Hilbe it is important to always maintain a joint dialog and see where the congruent formation of opinions can be improved. According to Hilbe, 2020 will present an exciting major project for the jazz departments, and planning for the next edition of the Swiss Exchange Festival DKSJ is already underway.

Salome Zwicky - They stand for uncertainty, rejection, timeout, reorientation and existential fear. The question often arises not only as to whether the work was done incorrectly, but also as to whether self-blame and feelings of guilt can be the result. Young female singers in training or at the start of their career are usually affected. Men do not have nodules, longer vocal folds seem to be immune.

Nodules are caused by any unfavorable form of voice production - not just when singing. They are thickenings of the mucous membrane in the middle section of the vocal folds due to unfavorable phonation - hence the technical term phonation thickening.

The air flows through the closed vocal folds and creates a vibration at their edge. The air flow rubs and sucks on the mucous membrane, most noticeably in the middle of the vocal folds. To protect itself, the over-stressed mucous membrane thickens, similar to how the skin on the hands or feet develops calluses under pressure and friction. However, the thickening of the vocal folds worsens the vibration properties, so that even more unfavorable pressure is required for phonation - a vicious circle is created.

Not every nodular change is a phonation thickening. Genuine nodules are symmetrical, i.e. they are roughly the same on both vocal folds. Nodular findings on only one vocal fold are almost certainly another change, for example polyps or cysts. Unlike nodules, these do not disappear even if the voice is spared. Genuine nodules, on the other hand, can become smaller or disappear if the voice is rested for one to two weeks (only quiet, effortless speaking, no singing in full voice). However, this temporary caution does not solve the problem; the thickenings will reappear under increasing strain. It is important to tackle the actual cause.

If real nodules are found, the first question is therefore the cause, and the form of therapy is derived from this. The harmful "too much" on the vocal folds is made up of the mechanical force and a time factor. In other words, it depends on how you produce sounds (muscular balance, subglottic pressure), but also how often and for how long you sing in this way. If nodules are discovered by chance, it is important to know that they only need to be treated if there is a simultaneous voice disorder. Some singers sing without any problems with the beginnings of nodules.

The therapeutic approach is always similar. Put simply, you have to learn to make sounds - especially loud or high-pitched sounds - resonate instead of being forced. The power to sing must be drawn from good breathing and body technique and not generated by laryngeal muscles. The same principle applies to speaking in everyday life, in the classroom and on stage and is also followed in speech training, vocal pedagogy or voice therapy (speech therapy). Breathing control, support and marginal voice training relieve the larynx. Proven aids are LaxVox or - brand new - the Doctor Vox voice mask. For some singers, individual areas of the vocal technique need to be changed. This takes time, but is essential for continued professional success. Surgical removal of the nodules is only necessary in a few cases and only makes sense if the incorrect vocalization is corrected at the same time.

Phonation thickening is not a bad thing. They show that the type of vocal strain has led to a dead end and are a warning signal for those affected to rethink and optimize the way they handle their voice. It is worth the effort. The important interaction between therapy and pedagogy offers the opportunity to get to know one's own voice in greater depth and thereby acquire mindfulness and a healthy technical foundation. It will literally "untie the knot".

Salome Zwicky

... from the SingStimmZentrumZürich (www.sszz.ch) is a specialist in ORL with a specialty in phoniatrics.

For some time now, the Viennese Universal-Edition has been publishing the more or less demanding teaching literature of the British guitarist and composer Paul Coles with a certain regularity, most recently the volume 10 More Melodic Studies for Guitar. The "More" in the title refers to the 26 Melodic Studies; but the booklet also fits the three volumes Classical Guitar Album The latter are progressively structured, from simple monophonic melodies to moderately difficult pieces for more advanced players. They are suitable as teaching material for - even young - adults. The quiet, romantic miniatures in the second half of the third booklet are particularly appealing (Volume 1: UE 21675, first pieces; Volume 2: UE 21 676, easy pieces; Volume 3: UE 21 677, medium-difficulty pieces; € 12.50 each).

And this is precisely what the 10 More Melodic Studies a refreshing contrast. Faster tempi, longer musical texts, hearty melodies in the upper and lower voices and arpeggios that lie well in the hand, with the last piece as the climax: a furious, Spanish-influenced Vivace. Coles' tonal language is romantically colored, with modern echoes, the rhythm is attractive with syncopations and changes between numerous different time signatures, sometimes also somewhat unwieldy. Perhaps here and there a musical idea is packed into a piece more than necessary, so that a stringent musical arrangement is not always easy.

10 More Melodic Studies for Guitar like all Paul Coles' editions, is attractively presented and contains not only the English accompanying texts but also their German and French translations.

Paul Coles: 10 More Melodic Studies, for guitar, UE 21678, € 13.50, Universal Edition, Vienna