The competition will be further developed under the direction of Weithaas and Wille. The next competition will take place in Hanover in fall 2021. Krzysztof Wegrzyn, the founder and previous artistic director, will remain closely associated with the competition as honorary president.

In Antje Weithaas, born in 1966, the Foundation has recruited the first prizewinner of the first Joseph Joachim Violin Competition in 1991 for the position of conductor. Weithaas was artistic director of the Camerata Bern for almost ten years and was responsible for its musical profile. Her own CD recordings include the complete recordings of the solo sonatas and partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach and the solo sonatas by Eugène Ysaÿe.

Oliver Wille, born in 1975, continues the competition's close cooperation with the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH). He has been a professor of string chamber music there since 2011. Wille is also a founding member of the Kuss Quartet and has been the director of the Hitzacker Summer Music Days since 2015.

Five people, three men and two women, trapped in a house or a hut, far away, in deep snow. No escape. And it keeps on snowing. The world premiere of Beat Furrer's new opera could not have been more topical than in these January days, when the Alpine region is sinking under the white masses. The initial situation is typical of the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin, who has already described similar situations in other stories, for example in The snowstorm from 2010. And as always, it doesn't just stick to the bare reality. Certainly, there are brief love scenes, almost romanticized in a hut, there is a quartet over warming tea. Peter is afraid of medical treatment if he is rescued half-frozen. But there are also three ensembles of loneliness, Jacques sings an arietta about dark matter, Silvia tells how a buzzing hornet grew in her viola and blew up the instrument. A dead woman appears, the situations become increasingly unreal, surreal. Did the table burn? Did the five of them eat the snow? In the end, the material takes us into the cosmic-fantastic. The uncertainty of the situation leads to uncertainty about the universe. That is Sorokin.

Eight years ago, he sketched this story for Beat Furrer. Dorothea Trottenberg translated it, and Händl Klaus, long one of the most sought-after librettists of contemporary music, created a linguistic-musical textual basis from it, on which Furrer has now based his new opera Purple snow can play out a whole range of musical forms in a more varied and entertaining way (than before): Duets, which certainly have something operatic about them, arettas, ensembles, all with a high degree of text comprehensibility, by the way; plus choral singing in the background (with the Vocalconsort Berlin), in which Furrer introduces a doomsday scenario by Lucretius (not for the first time) - as a kind of ancient commentary on current events. In between, the orchestra blossoms in all colors from pale white to bright red and back to violet. Matthias Pintscher brings the music to life lucidly with the Staatskapelle Berlin, and an outstanding vocal quintet with Anna Prohaska, Elsa Dreisig, Gyula Orendt, Georg Nigl and Otto Katzameier performs on stage. State opera level in the most positive sense.

That is one fascination, the other comes from the congenial staging by Claus Guth and his team. Everything fits together perfectly with the music and text: Set design (Étienne Pluss), costumes (Ursula Kudrna), video (Arian Andiel) and lighting (Olaf Freese). It's wonderful to watch the snow drift by. It opens up an additional level.

The moving overture, for example, is accompanied by a projection of a blurred snow flurry, out of which a concrete painting slowly emerges: the "Return of the Hunters", created for a cycle of monthly depictions in 1565 by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the painter of everyday life with all its playfulness and brutality, with its highs and lows. Here he tells of the joys and hardships of winter. The image is an essential part of the play and appears several times. At the beginning, in the spoken description of the undead Tanja (Martina Gedeck), but also later again and again, together with other Brueghel images. When the characters leave their hut, they are transported out of time into a 16th century setting. Brueghelian figures pass by in slow motion, in patina-clouded colors, in a dusky blur.

The different levels come together here in a dreamlike, somnambulistic way: in a kind of magical realism, narrative and at the same time impassable, with a floating emotionality. Opera does what it does particularly well, it exaggerates, it takes the ground of reality from under its feet. Furrer's new work is contemporary and yet it gets lost ... Where? The Latin "Nix" - snow combines with the German Nichts. There.

And why is the opera called Purple snow? In the final scene, the people, not only the occupants of the hut, but also other figures from Brueghel's tableaux are found on the surface of the stage. In an end-time vision, the light - the moon, the sun, Mars - rises again. The snow shines purple. It's beautiful, the people sing, but they don't understand the phenomenon. Something has changed, something has happened, but we don't know what or why.

The TapTab music venue will now receive CHF 25,000 a year from the city (previously CHF 10,000). These increases will make a targeted contribution to the consolidation of operations and strengthen the competitiveness of the region's most important cultural center, writes the canton. The cantonal contributions to the TapTab music room (CHF 20,000), the Kumpane association (CHF 26,000) and the Haberhaus Bühne association (CHF 25,000) remain unchanged.

The agreements are valid from 2019 to 2023 with the Kultur im Kammgarn association and the TapTab Musikverein and from 2019 to 2022 with the Kumpane association and the Haberhaus Bühne association.

The previous service agreements between the canton and the city of Schaffhausen on the one hand and the service providers on the other have proven their worth, according to the official announcement. The renewed service agreements are also contracts that have been in place for several years.

It had also been known for some time that the financial support for the Kammgarn cultural center was no longer appropriate in relation to its supra-regional importance. Both the canton and the city of Schaffhausen have therefore increased their contributions. The city's contribution to culture at Kammgarn has increased from CHF 70,000 to CHF 110,000 per year, while the canton's support has risen from CHF 90,000 to CHF 100,000 per year.

Schneider has managed the Künstlerhaus Boswil as a cultural institution since 2006, "modernizing and expanding its operations and making a lasting positive impact at all levels". During his time as Managing Director, he established the Künstlerhaus Boswil as a center for classical music, anchored it as a cultural beacon in Aargau and renewed the infrastructure through construction projects.

According to the official press release, the Board of Trustees deeply regrets the decision of its Managing Director and thanks him "for his many years of extremely valuable work". The Board of Trustees is once again looking for an overall manager for the Künstlerhaus in order to continue the successful work of recent years.

The center for classical music Künstlerhaus Boswil, which includes the old church and other properties in Boswil, is run by a private foundation. It organizes a festival, master concerts and other events. An emphasis is placed on new music and the promotion of young musicians: with the Boswil Ensemble for New Music, the Aargau Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Freiamt Youth Orchestra, the Künstlerhaus supports three of its own ensembles in the field of orchestral education.

Since 1996, the Apfelbaum Foundation has awarded the Integration Prize annually at the beginning of each year to one person and one organization for special integration achievements. The award focuses on "growing together in culture/cultures, in the world, in society, in the economy, in the sciences, between generations, through women's initiatives and between religions".

Previous winners include Amnesty International, the cabaret artist Hanns-Dieter Hüsch, the international cultural magazine Lettre International, the women's and human rights activist Alice Schwarzer and the theologian and church critic Hans Küng.

The Apfelbaum Foundation promotes long-term development processes geared towards community. At the same time, it is the sponsor of the dependent New Music in Dialogue Foundation and the Theology and Nature Foundation. The Gare du Nord, the station for new music based in the Badischer Bahnhof, is a "venue for the extremely lively and productive contemporary music scene in Switzerland, the three-country region and beyond".

Lo & Leduc's song entered the singles charts in February at position 39, improved steadily and reached number one in March. It stayed there for 21 weeks and set a new all-time record: No other song has been placed at the top more often than "079".

"Schnupf, Schnaps + Edelwyss" by Trauffer topped the Swiss album charts for six weeks. The album was in the charts for a total of 47 weeks - and took the top position in the 2018 annual charts.

The two acts were presented with a Number 1 Award by GfK Entertainment. It honors national artists whose album or single tops the Swiss charts. The hit parade in Switzerland is determined by the German company GfK Entertainment on behalf of IFPI Switzerland.

The finalists of the competition will perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Board of Directors of the competition consists of the Conservatory Director Li-guang Wang (President), Yoheved Kaplinsky (Artistic Director) and Richard Rodzinski. The event will be held as a piano competition in Beijing in May this year. The participants were selected by renowned teachers.

In addition to Kaplinsky, the jury consists of Dmitri Alexeev, Jan Jiracek von Arnim, Lydia Artymiw, Boris Berman, Michel Beroff, Fabio Bidini, Warren Jones, Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń and Arie Vardi. The candidates are not current or former students of the jury members.

In addition to the prize money, the winner of the competition will receive career support. He or she will be mentored by the agencies Opus 3 Artists (USA) and Armstrong Music and Arts (China) and will complete a three-year concert tour.

"The appeal of the conducting competition is very high because our scene is strongly oriented towards reputation," Sandro Blank is convinced. The last winner made his breakthrough not least thanks to the performances in Baden. As a prizewinner, he was able to present himself wherever he wanted. Another reward was the opportunity to lead the Swiss Army match.

However, the victory shortly before the first interview also made Feldmusik Sarnen sit up and take notice - after a two-year process, Sandro Blank was finally chosen as the new conductor. The professional conductor is also musical director of the Lucerne Youth Wind Orchestra and the Stadtmusik Zug and plays in the Nexus Reed Quintet.

Sandro Blank attended conducting courses with Tony Kurmann as a teenager. However, his career only really took off at the beginning of his studies at the Basel University of Music. The saxophonist had chosen conducting as a minor subject - and Felix Hauswirth only needed one lesson to trigger the famous "aha" effect in the young musician from Schwyz: "I immediately felt that conducting was my thing," recalls the 2016 winner. The decisive factor is not the technical part, which has to work somehow. Sandro Blank's strength lies in his musical imagination, which he "really enjoys".
 

"Conductors should be self-critical and always question themselves," says Blank. Taking part in Baden gave him the confidence that I'm on the right track". However, this took "a few night shifts". Because although Blank put in a lot of effort and rehearsed all seven works before the first day of the competition, he also wanted to be perfect in the nuances.

He knew what was needed in Baden, not least from his first participation in the competition almost six years ago. Although success had not yet materialized at the time, Blank benefited greatly. The competition gave him a lot of confidence in his future work as a conductor. This in turn gave him the strength to face the challenges of the four-day competition again in 2016.
 

Blank appreciates facing a competition. The Baden Conducting Competition means that as a young conductor you have to perform immediately in front of an unknown orchestra. Leaving your comfort zone is an important experience. For Blank, the five-minute rehearsal with the semi-final orchestra is particularly crucial for the competition. For him, but possibly also for the jury, these were the most important minutes of the four-day competition. Because this is where it becomes clear whether a conductor understands his profession.

Choral music from Great Britain is becoming increasingly popular in Germany and Oxford University Press (OUP) is the leading provider of this repertoire. The works of contemporary composers such as Bob Chilcott and John Rutter as well as historical compositions by Thomas Tallis and Ralph Vaughan Williams inspire German audiences.

In British choirs, on the other hand, there is increasing interest in modern Urtext editions of choral symphonic works by J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms, for example - a core competence of Carus-Verlag.

Both publishing houses are thus counting on greater awareness and availability of their program for choirs and organists in the British Isles and Germany respectively. The cooperation starts immediately.
 

According to a press release from the Lucerne School of Music, Valentin Gloor studied solo singing at the Winterthur-Zurich University of Music and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Austria), where he graduated with distinction in Artistic Research in 2013. He was a research fellow and associate researcher at the Orpheus Instituut Gent (Belgium) and later worked as a freelancer. Already during his education, Gloor acquired in-depth knowledge of the Swiss educational landscape as President of the Professional Training Commission of the "Swiss Music Pedagogical Association SMPV" and Head of the "Swiss Academy of Music and Music Pedagogy Foundation" in management positions. He then successively expanded his management skills: first as founding rector of the Department of Music and later as a member of the Board of the Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences Switzerland and, from 2014, as Director of the Winterthur Conservatory. He also gained experience in political contexts as a board member of the Association of Zurich Music Schools and the Association of Swiss Music Schools (music education department and vice-presidency).

He has also worked as a private teacher and lecturer at music schools and cantonal schools, as a guest lecturer at universities in Brazil, as a freelance singer in Switzerland and abroad and as a choirmaster.

Bachtrack also notes, for example, that contemporary female composers are still severely underrepresented in the concert hall, with a particularly alarmingly low figure in Germany: of all contemporary works performed by German orchestras in 2018, only 5 percent were by women. Sweden has the highest figure here, at 37 percent.

Women are improving faster than men in the 2018 statistics, albeit from a weak starting point: Clara Schumann is in second place behind Lili Boulanger as the most performed female composer, and both also made it into the list of the top 100 composers, at 94th and 85th place respectively. They are the first women in the top 100.

Four German and one Austrian orchestra have made it into the top 10 most active orchestras in the world, with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in second place with 139 performances. Composer Jörg Widmann is in third place in the top 5 most frequently performed contemporary composers worldwide.

More info: www.bachtrack.com

The Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna is organizing an international symposium in collaboration with the Arnold Schönberg Science Center and the Vienna School at the Institute for Musicology and Interpretation Research at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from 17 to 19 October 2019.

The symposium will focus on sketching in the Viennese School. The focus will be on compositional sketches by Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern from the transitional period around 1908/09 as well as the early phase of composition with twelve notes related only to each other in the years 1921 to 1924.

For the "Free papers" section, submissions are welcome on the thematic focus on compositional sketches by Arnold Schönberg as well as on questions of current Schönberg research.

The symposium offers scientists the opportunity to present the results of their research in a 20-minute lecture. Symposium languages are German and English. A publication of selected contributions and free submissions is planned for the Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 17/2020.

In the 2019/20 school year, the funding requirement for the conservatory's supplementary services amounts to CHF 500,000. The City Council has decided to make CHF 200,000 available for the 2019/20 school year to bridge the gap. This amount corresponds to the proportion of Winterthur residents who use such services. The remaining shortfall of CHF 300,000 will continue to be covered by private individuals. From the 2020/21 school year, funding will be provided on the basis of the new law.

The conservatory received additional cantonal support until 2016 for its supplementary pre-school programs as well as for particularly talented young musicians. These offerings - such as the well-known Winterthur Youth Symphony Orchestra (WJSO), the national and international award-winning choirs, ensembles and bands, as well as the support program and the preparatory course for music studies - have become an integral part of Winterthur's cultural life and the local educational landscape.

In 2016, the canton withdrew from the funding, although this was intended as bridging funding until a new, valid music school law was passed. The Cantonal Council did not agree to an initial version in 2016, and the government decided on the "LÜ16" savings program at the same time. As a result, the canton stopped making payments and the resulting deficits have since been borne by the Musikkollegium Winterthur.

For decades, the canton and the city of Bern each rented two residential studios in the New York borough of Manhattan and were thus able to advertise and award two six-month scholarships for artists abroad each year. The end came as a surprise in fall 2017. The landlord, Bernese actress Linda Geiser, sold her property and terminated the tenancy, which had lasted for over 35 years.

Those responsible for culture in the city and canton examined various options. In the end, they decided to continue the city-cantonal cooperation in New York and to work with the new partner "Residency Unlimited" RU (www.residencyunlimited.org) to work together. The selected artists will now travel to Brooklyn, the center of New York's younger art and culture scene.

Founded by artists, the organization developed a multifunctional art space in a converted church in Carroll Gardens in the borough of Brooklyn as a hub and starting point for exhibitions, screenings, public talks and performances, but also for informal meetings of international guests and for their productions. RU also arranges studios, performance opportunities and apartments for international guests.

As in the past, the city and canton will announce two New York scholarships every six months under the same conditions. The City of Bern will be the first to do so, offering the first two scholarships in collaboration with RU for the period from August 1 to the end of 2019. In addition to a studio and (now separate) accommodation, the scholarship includes a contribution of CHF 15,000 towards living costs.

In view of the increased prices in New York, it had to be shortened by one month to five months. More than ever, the decisive factor for a successful working stay in New York is how quickly you get to know the "right" places and people. What Linda Geiser has done informally so far will be institutionalized in the coming years. Cultural practitioners traveling to New York will be able to benefit from RU's network.
 

Chuchchepati is the Nepalese word for horizon, a district of Kathmandu. The Appenzell-based double bass player, experimental musician and sound art mediator Patrick Kessler uses this term to refer to the origin of eight large loudspeakers, which act as an octaphonic installation in his orchestra of the same name. Together with the other instruments of the ensemble, they create a flexible sound language of real-time soundtracks. The sound installation is openly accessible and communicative; the audience should actively participate. It will be heard at a total of 24 concerts, with different line-ups and in a wide variety of locations.

Kessler lives in Gais (AR) and moves with the double bass at the interface between performative art and improvisation, between installation and composition - often supplemented with electronic elements, experimental analog sound collages and visual means. Among other things, he curates "Klang Moor Schopfe" - sound installations and festival in the high moor of Gais, the concert series "Appenzeller Wechselstube" and the "Jazz Linard" jazz festival in Lavin.