Until now, classical guitars have been made from a combination of long-stored tropical wood species such as West Indian cedar for the neck, East Indian rosewood for the sides and back and ebony for the fingerboard. Since the beginning of 2017, however, stricter regulations have applied to the trade in endangered woods from the tropics, meaning that musical instrument makers have to rely on alternatives.

With the TU Dresden treatment process, native woods are thermally treated at a certain temperature and pressure for a certain period of time in order to accelerate the necessary ageing processes of the wood. As a result, the thermally modified native woods can be further processed into high-quality musical instruments after just one year.

Hanika now produces four new, completely tropical wood-free guitar models (basic, middle, upper and master class) from thermally treated local woods. The guitar manufacturer was awarded the title of "ZIM Craft Project of the Year" at the Innovation Day for SMEs organized by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in Berlin.

With a "small pinch of humor", Meierhans looks at a special culture: in addition to football, bowling is very important in the Ruhr region. Once the work is done, people meet up, drink beer and schnapps, talk - and in between they throw balls at skittles. The pub with bowling alleys on Ruhrstrasse in Witten looks long since abandoned. Plaster is peeling from the walls, the furniture is worn, muted colors are reminiscent of the 1950s. Meierhans wanted to refer to the location "without nostalgia", to take a friendly look at the absurdities of "club activities". Born in Burgau/SG in 1981, she positioned a percussionist near the former beer bar. A viola, a trombone and a saxophone play directly at the lanes; the sound ambience is supported by voice recordings via loudspeakers.

Meierhans rightly did not compose stringent works. Rather, they are loosened tone or sound sequences or something like small rhythm studies that can be heard. This leaves room for intellectual and athletic freedom. In between, festival-goers can throw a ball themselves, reflect on times gone by, abandon themselves to atmospheres that ultimately seem pretty, but ultimately also too timid and reserved. Well then: It may be due to different mentalities. Here the pithy, mostly male-dominated Westphalian bowling, there a reflective but also reserved female artist from Switzerland - it's not an easy constellation.
 

Barblina Meierhans' station Those days are over ... is not the only one. Alternative venues away from the concert halls have become a tradition in Witten. Sometimes - just like at the Rümlingen Festival - it's a sound hike in the countryside, sometimes pieces are performed on a ferry or in a streetcar, sometimes festival director Harry Vogt orders sound installations for cellar vaults. When it comes to site-specific art, composer and multimedia specialist Manos Tsangaris is the right address. Tsangaris' tried and tested recipe is to play with the inside and outside. This year in Witten it looks like this: Inside, in a kiosk from the 1950s with glass almost all around, the audience is seated, with sound provided by a few instrumentalists and loudspeakers. Outside, near a crossroads, ordinary passers-by move about alongside obscure figures who may be real or - who knows? - ordered by Tsangaris. He describes his station as a "chamber play", which could also be called "audio cinema".

In any case, a speaker and an interviewer come from the sphere of art, whose words reach the packed kiosk by radio. Tsangaris has fine antennae. As with Meierhans, the music should not be too much in the foreground. So it is rather small atmospheric additions that the musicians play. Meanwhile, the speaker strolling outside muses on the subject of progress, while the interviewer rather intrusively asks passers-by in Witten about their taste in music. Rolling Stones are a "force", says one passer-by. He doesn't know Karlheinz Stockhausen.
 

What happens inside the concert halls probably remains hidden from the people of Witten. What a pity! Because everything that sounds this year is worth listening to, some of it sensationally good. The concert with works by Mikel Urquiza, Sasha J. Blondeau and Sara Glojnarić, all around the age of thirty, was outstanding. Urquiza sets Danish texts by Inger Christensen to music, involving the soprano in enchantingly intimate dialogs with either a muted trumpet, clarinet or percussion. Sasha J. Blondeau, born in Briançon, France in 1986, opts for a grainy, roughened sound study, while Croatian composer Glojnarić's approach is more rhythmic in nature. In a witty manner, she does not refer to the "might" Rolling Stones, but to drum intros by rock groups The Police, Nirvana and U2. The fact that this 50-minute concert works so well is partly due to the entertaining heterogeneity and striking compositional quality of the works, but also to the performers. Sarah Maria Sun (soprano), Marco Blaauw (trumpets), Carl Rosman (clarinets) and Dirk Rothbrust (percussion) play breathtakingly. Terms such as "variability", "perfection" or "sound sensitivity" hardly do justice to the incredible musicality of this quartet.

The Witten Festival for New Chamber Music is clearly on the right track. After years of tense, sophistical complexity and an obsessive search for new worlds of sound, there seems to be more looseness in play again - no mere unfocused laissez faire, but a pleasingly skillful sovereignty. Three days full of lasting experiences. What more could you want?
 

Jossi Wieler grew up in Kreuzlingen in 1951. He lived in Thurgau until 1972 and then moved to Tel Aviv, Israel, to study directing. He then gained his first stage experience at the Habimah National Theater and, from 1980, at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He then worked as an actor-director in Heidelberg, Bonn, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin. From 1988 to 1993 he was resident director at the Theater Basel. He then worked as a freelance director, including at the Münchner Kammerspiele and repeatedly at the Salzburg Festival.

Since 1994, he has also directed operas together with Sergio Morabito. Wieler and Morabito were voted Directing Team of the Year in 2002 and 2012 and received the German Theater Prize Der Faust in the category "Best Opera Direction" in 2006 ("Doktor Faust") and 2012 ("Die glückliche Hand/Schicksal"). In 2015, Jossi Wieler was awarded the Baden-Württemberg Culture Prize; in 2016, he received the Order of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg.

Othella Dallas was born in Memphis in 1925. Before she began her career as a singer, she was a student of dancer Catherine Dunham. Dallas made her debut as a singer in the early 1950s in the jazz clubs of Paris, where she shared the stage with Duke Ellington, Sammy Davis Jr, Nat King Cole, Quincy Jones, Sonny Stitt, King Kurtis and many more. Othella Dallas has lived in Switzerland since the 1960s. In 1975, she founded the Othella Dallas Dance School in Basel. In 2008, she brought her album "I Live The Life I Love" back to the stage.

The Swiss Jazz Award was launched in 2007 by Radio Swiss Jazz and JazzAscona with the aim of bringing Swiss jazz to a wider audience. Initially it was an audience award, but in 2017 and 2018 it was awarded directly. Previous winners include Franco Ambrosetti (2018), Bruno Spoerri (2017), Patrick Bianco's Cannonsoul (2016), Raphael Jost and lots of horns (2015), Nicole Herzog & Stewy von Wattenwyl (2014), Chris Conz Trio (2013), Christina Jaccard & Dave Ruosch (2012), Alexia Gardner (2011) and Dani Felber Big Band (2010). A "Lifetime Achievement Award" has so far been presented to Hazy Osterwald (2009) and Pepe Lienhard (2006).
 

Christine Hasler works as a theater musician and singer/songwriter. She completed her Master's degree in Music and Media Art at the Bern University of the Arts in 2015. As a theater musician, she has worked with Markus Heinzelmann at the Theater Kanton Zürich, the Staatstheater Nürnberg, the Stadttheater Ingolstadt and the Hessisches Landestheater Marburg, with Marie Bues at the Schlachthaustheater in Bern and at the Rampe in Stuttgart. With her singer/songwriting project Lia Sells Fish, she regularly performs concerts throughout Switzerland.

Violinist Simone Meyer is a student of Bartlomiej Niziol, who teaches at Bern University of the Arts. She won a sponsorship prize at the Migros Culture Percentage competition in 2013 and a Rahn scholarship in 2014/15. In 2016, she toured as a soloist with the Junge Münchner Philharmonie under the direction of Mark Mast and performed seven concerts in Munich, Zurich and Vienna.

The English composer Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) came to Leipzig in 1877 to study music at the local conservatory. "Leipzig!!! ... HERE I AM", was the title of one of the first of over 50 letters she wrote to her mother during this time. In them, she gives an impressive account of the cultural differences to her home country that are noticeable in everyday life, her training at the Leipzig Conservatory and also of her diverse activities and encounters in Leipzig's social life.

In 2014, the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre (HMT) succeeded in acquiring the 57 letters offered by a London antiquarian bookshop through a sponsorship campaign. The individual documents were then made accessible in the Kalliope manuscript portal. Just in time for the 75th anniversary of the death of the composer, writer and women's rights activist Ethel Smyth, the letters are now also available online.

The digital copies can be found with other objects from the digital HMT collection on the portal Saxony.digital and can be used under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. The digitization, presentation and long-term archiving of the collection was made possible by the State Digitization Programme for Science and Culture of the Free State of Saxony, coordinated by the SLUB Dresden.

As part of their periodic strategy review, the Lucerne Festival Foundation Board and Executive Board have decided on the new festival structure that will apply from next year. Two new weekends will be created from 2020. These will offer audiences concerts in spring and fall, including in-house productions.

In addition to the orchestra and the Academy, the Lucerne Festival Alumni are to be given more importance. This is a network of former Academy participants whose concert activities in Lucerne and abroad are steadily increasing. Activities in the city and region of Lucerne are also to be intensified. These include, for example, the concert broadcasts on the Inseli, the "In den Strassen" festival, the experience day and the "40min" format.

André and Michel Décosterd were born in 1967 and 1969 in Le Locle. André Décosterd, a musician, specialized in music informatics and studied the composition systems of electro-acoustic and contemporary music. Michel Décosterd, an engineer, began designing moving sculptures. Since 1997, the two brothers have combined their talents as Cod.Act, creating musical and architectural forms with an aesthetic reminiscent of the industrial world.

The following 14 musicians or ensembles will be honored with a Swiss Music Prize: Bonaventure - Soraya Lutangu (Rougemont VD), d'incise - Laurent Peter (Geneva), Pierre Favre (Le Locle), Ils Fränzlis da Tschlin (Engadin), Béatrice Graf (Nyon), Michael Jarrell (Geneva), Kammerorchester Basel (Basel), KT Gorique (Sion), Les Reines Prochaines (Basel), Rudolf Lutz (St. Gallen), Björn Meyer (Bern), Andy Scherrer (Brunnadern SG), Sebb Bash (Lausanne) and Marco Zappa (Locarno).

From jazz to contemporary music, from hip-hop to rap and from classical to folk music, all genres of music are represented by the award winners. This year, however, the focus is on electronic music in a wide variety of forms. For the first time, a prize will also be awarded to an orchestra.
 

Contrary to the National Council, the Council of States committee wants the hotel tax to remain in place. If the National Council has its way, hotels, hospitals and prisons should no longer have to pay for the use of public works on their premises. The use should be defined as personal use.

However, the Commission has maintained its earlier decision on video-on-demand. It agrees that filmmakers should receive remuneration for video-on-demand use. The regulation is intended to take account of the increasing online use of works and the disappearance of video stores. However, the WBK proposes to exclude music in films from such a remuneration obligation.

The copyright societies had campaigned for its retention. See this Article in the SMZ.

What do you wear at your concerts? Is it a predetermined professional outfit or can you decide for yourself? Do you like this outfit? Is it practical? What would you change?

A student at the Swiss Textile College has set herself the task of designing fashionable concert clothing adapted to the special requirements of playing. She is very grateful for your experience.

Take part in this Online survey (duration approx. 5 minutes).

The aim of the survey is to find out your needs, but also the difficulties that concert clothing can cause when playing music. Your details will remain anonymous and will not be used outside of this research.

The draft resulting from the survey will be published in the December 2019 issue of the Swiss Music Newspaper presented.

Photo: Kai Pilger on unsplash

Davide Rizzitelli and Atilla Bayraktar founded the band "Vals" in the summer of 2018 to experiment with new musical production methods. They work with old tapes instead of computer sequencers, with cassettes and tape loops instead of samplers and also incorporate visual aspects. The city is awarding a work grant in recognition of "the forward-looking and sustainable potential of this combination of nostalgic and futuristic elements".

Charles Uzor has been working on his third opera project for some time now, focusing on Leopold II, King of Belgium and owner of the private colony of Congo. According to the city, the project is "anchored in the present in its reappraisal of colonialism and the images of perpetrators and victims" and has the potential to captivate the audience through ambivalence, suspense and credible motifs.

In addition, the city will provide grants to Tine Edel (fine arts), GAFFA (Dario Forlin, Wanja Harb, Linus Lutz, Lucian Kunz) (applied arts), Priska Rita Oeler (fine arts) and Juliette Uzor (dance)

"Repertoire is a question of life." Eric Ericson, the Swedish choral legend, lived out this ever-applicable credo like no other and convincingly passed it on to his students (including the author of this text). In their search for exciting repertoire, choral conductors will find real treasure troves in the new collections presented here, with music from Luxembourg and France, as well as oratorio works by J. S. Bach.

The sacred vocal works of the Luxembourg composer Laurent Menager (1835-1902), who is relatively unknown in our part of the world, have been published in an exemplary edition by Verlag Merseburger as volume 3 of the large-scale Critical Complete Edition within the research project "Musique luxembourgeoise" at the University of Luxembourg.

Menager studied with Chopin and Mendelssohn's friend Ferdinand Hiller in Cologne in the mid-19th century. His church music is in the tradition of the German late Romantics and is characterized by a simple treatment of the text and a preference for homophonic-syllabic writing. The volume contains many beautiful-sounding, short and easy-to-perform German and Latin a cappella works (some also with organ accompaniment), which are ideal for the Catholic liturgy as hymns, Marian hymns and Tantum-ergo compositions.

In French choral musicpublished by Carus-Verlag, not only directors of Catholic choirs will find a stylistically wide-ranging sacred repertoire with some well-known works, but above all many worthwhile new discoveries and first editions. The works in Latin and French, many also with organ accompaniment, are for the most part not particularly difficult, mainly for four voices with additional small part divisions and can be used in both interdenominational and concert settings. The editor Denis Rouger, professor of choral conducting in Stuttgart, was able to draw on his many years of experience as conductor at the Parisian churches of Notre-Dame and La Madeleine for this loving compilation and complements the edition with a CD of selected works, beautifully sung by his chamber choir figure humaine.

In recent years, Breitkopf & Härtel's Urtext editions have provided an excellent treasure trove of oratorio repertoire: be it the new editions of "blockbusters" such as Handel's Messiah (highly recommended critical edition with many new perspectives, score PB 5560) or Mozart's Mass in C minor (sensitive reconstruction by Clemens Kemme, PB 5562), but also newly discovered works around Bach that would deserve more frequent performances.

Particularly noteworthy are the new publications by the Bohemian Baroque composer Jan Dismas Zelenka, who was highly esteemed by J. S. Bach. Both his Miserere C minor (ZWV 57, PB 5594), as well as his Missa votiva (ZWV 18, PB 5577) are masterpieces of his church music for the Dresden Hofkirche. They make do with an inexpensive orchestration (two oboes, strings and basso continuo) and yet are rich in form and color.

The works of Johann Kuhnau, Bach's direct predecessor at Leipzig's Thomaskirche, offer a truly rewarding rediscovery. His newly published Magnificat with Christmas interludes is a real enrichment for festive Christmas concerts with soloists, choir and orchestra (EB 32108).

Between Bach's Passions, their rediscovery and Carl Loewe's The atonement of the new covenant is the one-hour Passion oratorio, which is not too difficult to perform Gethsemane and Golgotha The textually vivid and palatable setting is reminiscent of Mendelssohn with its opulent choirs, contains only a few arias and involves the congregation with Passion chorales. An interesting enrichment for Passion concerts, but also ideally suited as Good Friday music in church services.

Laurent Menager: Sacred vocal works for mixed choir SATB, male choir TTBB, solo voices and duo, (=Critical Complete Edition Volume 3), edited by Alain Nitschké and Damien Sagrillo, score, EM 2600, € 140.00, Merseburger, Kassel 2018

French choral music, 45 sacred choruses and motets from the 15th-21st century, edited by Denis Rouger, choral director's volume with CD, CV 2.311, € 27.90, Carus, Stuttgart 2018

Johann Kuhnau: Magnificat in C major with interludes for performance at Christmas time, edited by David Erler , score, PB 32108, € 54.00, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2018

When one speaks of a horn trio, one immediately thinks of the famous Opus 40 by Johannes Brahms, which inspired György Ligeti in the eighties of the last century to write his groundbreaking trio Hommage à Brahms to compose. Composers of "moderate modernism" also repeatedly attempted to follow in Brahms' footsteps. These included Charles Koechlin with his dreamy preciousness Quatre petites Pièces op. 32 by the English composer Lennox Berkeley and the Australian Don Banks, who contributed something enriching to this genre.

Edition Bim, the commendably active publisher of brass music in western Switzerland, has published a trio for violin, horn and piano by the American Richard Lane (1933-2004), who wrote a whole series of works for orchestra, wind orchestra and solo pieces for wind instruments. The eleven-minute trio appeals with its lively interplay between the three instruments and free, lyrical sections in the Adagio of the second movement.

The Englishman John Frith brings his love of the Brahms trio to his new work for the same instrumentation. Still a practicing horn player, he knows the tonal advantages of his instrument, which he places here in the best-sounding register to the other instruments.

Richard Lane: Trio, for violin, horn and piano, score and parts MCX75, Fr. 25.00, Editions Bim, Vuarmarens

John Frith: Horn Trio, for violin, horn and piano, E717, £ 17.95, June Emerson Wind Music, Ampleforth

The singer begins with a rapidly rising and falling gesture, the clarinet imitates her, and so it goes on, alternating. Within a short space of time, the gesture changes, the voices intertwine, rub against each other and continue to rise until they get stuck on the highest note. Short, quiet repetitions follow and finally a simple Slovakian folk song, a howling song. To be heard in the Meadow Song by Iris Szeghy. The Slovakian composer, who has lived and worked in Zurich since 2001, knows how to take such simple material - imitation is actually the oldest musical craft - and develop a coherent form in a small space. Based on such experiences, I once called her a master of the small form many years ago, which she did not allow to go unchallenged: she could also create large sequences. So be it. As far as epically expansive works are concerned, you won't find them here on this CD, which she recorded with the Slovakian trio Sen Tegmento. The soprano Nao Higano, the clarinettist Martin Adámek and the pianist Zuzana Biščáková give an incredibly beautiful performance. Only the German pronunciation sometimes seems a little bumpy.

The way Szeghy condenses the music and formulates it succinctly, without any pressure to innovate, based on familiar material, is beautifully demonstrated here. Sometimes she begins with simple, almost banal sounds and then takes them to extremes, into theatrically exalted gestures. For example, the piano piece develops from a dull pounding Perpetuum mobile to garish cascades. In Folclorico a slow clarinet cantilena is contrasted by orientalisms in the piano, which again explode in violent outbursts. This has its pitfalls, as it threatens to disavow what was laid down at the beginning, for example when one of the "Hesse Splinters" (based on fragments by Hermann Hesse) sarcastically distorts into a loud laugh where immortality is concerned. Not all of the pieces escape the placativity. This is the danger of not only suggestive, but also over-explicit representation.

Particularly haunting is the setting of Paul Celan's Psalm for voice alone. Between whispering, whispering, speaking and dark singing, the poem, which is so moving and unladen, unfolds, blossoms for a moment, like the central "Niemandsrose" - and then sinks again. The Invocation of the Great Bear Ingeborg Bachmann's concludes the CD: In the dead silence, the music flutters out lightly and seriously.

Why should we listen to music from historical eras? The music of mostly dead white men, as a friend recently complained. The problem challenges the entire classical music industry, but is even more acute for an organizer like the Forum Alte Musik Zürich. After all, the programme focuses of the festivals it organizes twice a year often date back to times long past.

However, as this year's spring festival under the motto "Metamorphoses" shows, the solutions sprout most abundantly where they are most urgently needed. Consciously or unconsciously, the program spread over two weekends offered a range of answers to the question of why or how one should engage with works that originate from a culturally and socially distant environment.

This began with the small aperitif concerts in which Linda Alijaj and Hitomi Inoue, both students at the Zurich University of the Arts, performed Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for solo oboe. You could call this the museum approach to the past and you would certainly not be entirely wrong. The choice of this piece and the additional excerpts from Ovid's poem performed by drama student Morris Weckherlin were a clear and demonstrative reference to the long tradition of European culture. The fact that Britten's work is not early music lends a certain freshness and testifies to the openness with which the Forum designs its programs.

Of course, the most common approach to old works among organizers could also be observed over the two weekends: The question of their topicality is not even asked; instead, one simply trusts in the power of the music and tries to present it as favorably as possible in a good interpretation. At the Metamorphosen Festival, for example, in a concert dedicated to Josquin Desprez, for many the most important Renaissance composer. The vocal ensemble Alamire demonstrated impressively in St. Peter's Church what English small ensembles are rightly famous for. The interweaving of voices was realized with tremendous agility, individual voices were emphasized and the flow of sound was structured. Individual phrases were given a little more space here and there without disturbing the delicate texture. Even the early and still relatively sparse Missa d'ung aultre amer blossomed sensually under the direction of conductor and musicologist David Skinner. The only question is why this concert was one of the worst-attended of the otherwise well-attended festival - because musically it was a highlight. Perhaps it can be interpreted as an indication that it is no longer enough to simply present so-called masterpieces of music history in order to attract an audience. Or it was simply a coincidence.

In contrast, three concerts in which attempts were made to revive lost or even forgotten traditions drew large audiences. For example, the Deutsche Hofmusik presented a reconstruction of Johann Sebastian Bach's lost Köthen funeral music and the Ensemble Melpomen, under Conrad Steinmann's direction, even ventured to imagine the music of ancient Greece. And, coincidence or not, it was precisely in such moments of tentative, speculative approach that the confrontation with the past proved to be extremely productive. Namely, by forcing us to think about how we deal with the past.

This became most apparent at the Helferei during the concert by Arianna Savall's group Hirundo Maris. Savall opened her European journey through 200 years of Minnesang with an invitation to the Middle Ages, and even then one wondered whether it wasn't rather the other way around. Aren't we being visited by the Middle Ages? And as a good guest, adapting to the customs of the host? Without bringing the dirt and disturbing habits with it? After all, Hirundo Maris did not offer an authentic Middle Ages, but a modern look back. This would not be problematic in principle, as there is no other option but to adopt a certain view of the traditional text and melody as conscientiously as possible. And musically, the solution was excellent and historically sound. But all the fuss, including the "medieval costume", was disconcerting. More distance from its own actions would not have done the ensemble any harm. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, the audience left the concert musically exhilarated and intellectually stimulated. And what more could you want? Many events with contemporary music are not able to achieve this.

The final concert with a vesper by Carlo Donato Cossoni, a northern Italian composer of the 17th century, most of whose music is preserved in manuscript form in the library of Einsiedeln Abbey, provided an insight of a completely different kind. It is now one of the industry's favorite marketing tricks to rediscover unknown minor masters. Once again, however, it was noted that for many of these discoveries it would be no great loss if they were never made. However, one of the many strengths of the festival is that such concerts are also remembered as profitable.