Since 1982, the Uri Art and Culture Foundation has announced the Uri Work Year and grants once a year. Artists and cultural practitioners who have lived in Uri for at least three years or who have lived in Uri for at least eight years can apply for the Uri Year of Work or grants. A residence permit in the canton of Uri is no longer sufficient to apply. This year, the nine-member board of trustees can once again award the Central Switzerland studio in New York. This will give artists from Uri the opportunity to live and work in the American city for several months in 2020.

The decision on the award is made by a nine-member board of experts under the direction of Elisabeth Fähndrich. The decisive factors for the award are the documentation, the track record and the presentation of the exhibited works in the Haus für Kunst Uri. The Uri Work Year, the highest award, is endowed with CHF 20,000. The grants amount to between 4,000 and 10,000 francs, project contributions range from 2,000 to 6,000 francs.

Over the past 37 years, the Uri Art and Culture Foundation has supported creative artists from Uri with around 1.1 million francs. In addition, since 2011 the cantonal government of Uri has presented the "Golden Uristier" to personalities with major cultural achievements. The Art and Culture Foundation is jointly supported by the Canton of Uri and the Uri Art Association and is financed by the lottery fund. Every five to ten years, a personality from Uri is also awarded the Central Switzerland Culture Prize, the highest award from the governments of Central Switzerland.

Direct link to the application documents:
http://www.ur.ch/de/verwaltung/dienstleistungen/?dienst_id=3896
 

Jeanne Chevalier played a role in the film world at her own place of work, in the town of Roanne (Loire). A movie theater in the city bears her name. Her son Pierre Chevalier is an important film producer, among others for the cultural channel Arte.

But Jeanne Chevalier also played a part in her brother's career development. For example, she assisted him during the legendary Siegfried-production in Bayreuth with Patrice Chéreau as director. Together with her brother Roger Boulez and her children, she decided that the composer's estate should be divided between three institutions: The Paul Sacher Foundation, the Bibliothèque national de France and the Cité de la Musique in Paris.

Link to the article at Radio France

A teacher speaks, a learner performs, the class watches attentively: In the traditional model for master classes, the hierarchies are clearly defined. This learning situation is still used in the Darmstadt summer courses, but the lasting impetus is now increasingly coming from other formats. Since Thomas Schäfer took over the artistic direction of the courses in 2009, the exchange has become greater and more diverse. This year, participants in the academy were able to take part in various workshops on very different topics such as collective composing, working in public spaces and artistic research. In the area of discourse, the lecture format was also loosened up to include various forms of participation. Finally, the "Open Space", the place for self-initiated performances, is now so well established that the various rooms were already occupied in the first of the two weeks. Schäfer draws on the image of Plato's "philosophical garden" to describe the fact that very different players from a wide range of backgrounds with diverse knowledge, skills and goals come together in Darmstadt to learn with and from each other, to live and work together for a certain period of time - in other words, to create open spaces for the development of new ideas.

Personal insights into the various forms of the expansive Darmstadt think tank are provided by three participants who have traveled from Switzerland. The 24-year-old harpist Rahel Schweizer has just completed her master's degree in pedagogy with Sarah O'Brien in Zurich and is involved in various ensembles, theater groups and a band. Lecturer Gunnhildur Einarsdóttir is responsible for new initiatives in the harp class in Darmstadt and has invited her to the "Composing for Harp" workshop and chamber sessions in addition to the master classes ("Studios"). Schweizer appreciates the diversity of the selected compositions and the openness in rehearsals: "I particularly like the experimental idea that everything can be tried out - and initially without judgment." In a rehearsal with the British composer Oliver Thurley, Schweizer works on the realization of the sounds with thimbles on the strings, deliberately pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Among other things, for this piece entitled a horizon, gloa on the forest floor Thurley is awarded the Kranichstein Music Prize for Composition.

Working together as a group is also important in Christian Dierstein and Håkon Stene's drum studio. For the concert Hearing Metal and Nylonwhich takes the form of a parcours through the rooms of the Edith-Stein-Schule, and for the open-air performance of the "Nature Theater of Darmstadt" workshop, the processes need to be carefully coordinated. The 27-year-old Frenchman Corentin Marillier, who is currently studying for a Master's degree in Interpretation of Contemporary Music with Pascal Pons at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, has not come here primarily to work on his own technique or playing style, but to meet people and reflect on his own work - which, as he says, is happening here at a very high level.

According to Lucerne-based composer and pianist Asia Ahmetjanova, the climate at the Darmstadt Summer Course has changed noticeably. The 26-year-old Latvian had already taken part as a composer in the summer of 2014 and found the atmosphere back then to be competitive in a negative sense and inhibiting for her work. This year, she was invited to write a new composition for the "Encounterpoints" workshop with Yaron Deutsch (guitar), Uli Fussenegger (double bass) and Carlo Laurenzi (sound direction). The piece Motivation is rehearsed in a collegial yet challenging atmosphere. Ahmetjanova attributes the more open, informal atmosphere to the higher proportion of female teachers and participants in this year's courses. In fact, the Darmstadt Summer Course team has long been committed to promoting equal opportunities and diversity. For example, greater involvement of female lecturers creates role models. This year, a temporary quota system in the composition courses has also led to an immediate and visible change. With these initiatives, the weighting of participants (42% female composers) and lecturers in composition (12 female composers and 14 male composers) has shifted significantly, while the topics of gender and diversity are reflected in detail at the "Defragmentation" conference.

The duo thus overtook Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" and Luis Fonsi's "Despacito", which each topped the ranking 20 times. Back in the spring, "079" had already surpassed the Swiss best by DJ Bobo ("Chihuahua") and the Minstrels ("Grüezi wohl, Frau Stirnimaa!"). Both hits spent ten weeks at number one.

In the meantime, "079" has sold over 90,000 copies (downloads and streams included), which is equivalent to quadruple platinum. In Germany, "079" has been streamed almost one million times to date.

The Swiss Hit Parade is compiled by GfK Entertainment on behalf of IFPI Switzerland. It is part of GfK, one of the world's largest market research companies.

The competition was won by Ayaka Sato from Japan, with Portugal's Alfedo Leitaō in second place. In third place was the Italian Tobias Reifer. The prizes are endowed with 6000, 3000 and 2000 euros.

The Lieksa Brass Week, during which the competition took place, was founded in 1980 by music consultant Erkki Eskelinen. The instruments taught are trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba and euphonium. In 2019, the competition will be held for trombone.
 

According to the press release from the Federal Office of Culture (FOC), the strategic axes of action of this cultural policy - cultural participation, social cohesion, creation and innovation - will be continued in the next cultural message for the years 2021-2024.

Berset explained that the political discussions surrounding the teaching of the national languages in elementary school and the numerous cantonal referendums on this topic had made it clear how important this aspect of Switzerland's diversity is. In the new cultural dispatch for 2021-2024, this topic of linguistic-cultural exchange will be a priority.

Strengthening cultural participation will also play a central role in the next cultural message. President Berset cited the Youth and Music program as an example. In 2017, this enabled over 8,500 children and young people to take part in music camps or courses. Over 11,000 participants are already planned for 2018. The development of this broad-based musical promotion forms the first phase of the program's implementation and will continue in the next funding period. Additional measures to promote talented musicians are to be introduced in the next Culture Dispatch.

President Berset also pointed out that the creative industries in Switzerland currently employ 275,000 people and generate added value of CHF 22 billion per year. In the future, new forms of cooperation between culture and the economy should be sought, particularly with regard to digitalization, which has also become significantly more important in the cultural sector in recent years. Cultural promotion must adapt and develop its instruments accordingly in all areas.

The Federal Council will open the consultation process for the new cultural dispatch in spring 2019. It should submit the dispatch to Parliament for discussion in February 2020. The final adoption of the cultural dispatch for the years 2021-24 should take place in the 2020 winter session.

In May, according to the Music Council, a parliamentary mandate was issued to the two responsible ministries (Education, Arts and Culture) to sound out possibilities for stimulating music lessons. Although the current government program also provides for the expansion of cultural focus schools, the Ministry of Education, Science and Research decided by decree 12/2018 to discontinue all school experiments at Austrian elementary school.

This affects around 8,500 pupils in 430 classes with a musical focus across Germany. Just a few weeks before the new school year, there is now great uncertainty among the teachers affected and the parents of the registered children as to what will happen next. Some federal states are now providing for a fall-back solution so that music focus classes can continue in the 2018/19 school year. However, there is an urgent need for a continuing solution, as the funding for the focus classes is not secured beyond the coming school year.

According to the Austrian Music Council, the measure will result in a further deterioration in the situation of music teaching, although "the government has committed itself to improving it". In any case, music lessons in elementary school are currently not guaranteed across the board, as there is a lack of music-specific training for primary school teachers at teacher training colleges. The ÖVP's culture spokesperson, Maria Grossbauer, is planning a first specialist dialog on music education at the end of September.

The patron Walter Loving (Hans Hollmann) organizes a benefit concert with the Argentinian Jewish Chamber Orchestra (Orchestra Jakobsplatz Munich). Music by composers who perished in concentration camps during the Second World War will be performed in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

However, Loving's son Franky (Andri Schenardi) is not the only one with a score to settle with his father. Jewish pianist Miriam Goldstein (Theresa Harder) is also planning to reveal a dark secret about the Loving family during the concert. An unknown blackmailer, however, wants to prevent this. In addition, the orchestra's clarinettist, Vincent Goldstein (Patrick Elias), is the target of a poison attack.

To avoid panic among the audience, the concert continues. While the music on stage reaches its climax, detectives Flückiger and Ritschard look deeper and deeper into the abyss of the Loving family. At breakneck speed, they combine their way through a labyrinth of jealousy, betrayal and bitterness. In the end, they are confronted with the question of whether the good deeds in a person's life outweigh their bad ones.

First broadcast: Sunday, August 5, 2018, 8:05 p.m., SRF 1

The 29-year-old Stefanie Heinzmann from Visp-Eyholz became known to the international public as the winner of a German singing competition. On January 10, 2008, she became the first Swiss woman to win a German talent show against all other competitors and win a recording contract.

Over the past ten years, Stefanie Heinzmann has mainly toured Germany and Switzerland with her band. However, she has also played concerts internationally, including in New York, Luxembourg, Austria and Poland. She has released four studio albums (debut album "Masterplan" went double platinum in Switzerland) and received awards at home and abroad (including the Prix Walo as Best Newcomer 2008, two Swiss Music Awards 2009 in the categories "Best Newcomer National" and "Best Song National", the Echo 2009 as Best Artist National Rock/Pop, the Swiss Music Awards 2016 as "Best Female Solo Act").

Heinzmann is also a voice actress in the animated film Pets and an ambassador for the iChance campaign, which promotes learning to read and write. She is also a permanent supporter of Unicef Switzerland and the German Children's Hospice Foundation.

The Rünzi Prize, endowed with CHF 20,000, has been awarded since 1972. According to the foundation charter, it can be awarded by the Council to any personality who has brought special honor to Valais.
 

The project is scheduled to run for one and a half years and comprises the digitization and indexing of around 48,000 pages of the Frankfurt cantata collection from the 18th century. It consists of almost 800 manuscripts of music by Telemann (1681-1767), who was active as municipal music director and church bandmaster in Frankfurt from 1712 to 1721. Among them are manuscripts in his own hand as well as copies of his works.

In addition, around 150 manuscripts of the municipal music directors who followed him up to the end of the 18th century and some anonymous works have been digitized. The texts of the cantatas are also offered in modern transcription. The recording of the watermarks will be particularly helpful for scribal and provenance research.

The aim of the project is to make the autographs and manuscripts of the church cantatas and some secular works from this unique collection available for academic research, scholarly editions and performances in churches and concert halls. It is a useful addition to similar music digitization projects in other academic libraries. The cantata manuscripts are expected to be available in the University Library's digital collections from the end of 2019.

CDs have been the dominant music format since the end of the 1980s. It now has a market share of 34.4% and sales have fallen by 24.5% compared to the first half of 2017. Downloads also continued to decline (-23.4%) and now have a market share of just 8.5%. For the first time since 2006, vinyl records also recorded losses, currently contributing 4.4% to total sales with a drop of 13.3%. The only growth segment apart from audio streaming is video streaming, which increased by 27.2% and now accounts for 2.2% of total sales.

As a result, the ratio of physical to digital business has now reversed in the first half of 2018 compared to the previous year: physical sound carriers (CD, DVD, vinyl LP) account for 41.1 percent, while digital business accounts for 58.9 percent.

In the first six months of the current year, the German music industry generated a total turnover of 727 million euros. Compared to the same period last year (first half of 2017: sales of 742 million euros), revenue from music sales fell by two percent.

After a two-year break, Liestal is once again becoming a cello hotspot and is back with 19 events between September 2 and 9. Its artistic director is the young German cellist Maximilian Hornung, who has won important music prizes and is successful all over the world.

The CD box set published a few weeks ago by "NZZ am Sonntag" profiles the most important classical music festivals in Switzerland. In addition to the expected candidates such as Lucerne, Verbier and Gstaad, one CD is dedicated to the 2016 VivaCello Festival. A rare success? "Yes and no", says 32-year-old master cellist Maximilian Hornung. "VivaCello has been popping up musically in the Stedtli at irregular intervals for 18 years, producing sensational and extraordinary things, and not just with regard to the cello. Even the list of names of the cellists who have performed since then impresses me." Mischa Maisky, Ivan Monighetti, Sol Gabetta, Nicolas Altstaedt and Steven Isserlis have played here, and the celebrity series will continue in 2018 with young Swiss star Chiara Enderle, old master Pieter Wispelwey from Holland, the German Daniel Müller-Schott, Thomas Demenga (who conducted the festival in 2003 & 2006) and the Swede Frans Helmerson, among others.

In 2016, VivaCello said goodbye with Rossini's William Tell Overture in front of 900 guests in Liestal's Rathausstrasse. So what will the 70 or so professional musicians offer over eight days in 2018, just music for the cello? "Even if it were possible to get by with it, after all the instrument has been shining on concert stages for a good 400 years and every composer of note has left works for the cello, variety and diversity are my main concerns," explains Hornung. It doesn't always have to be concert halls. "A coffee does its bit to give us a boost for the day, combined with a short concert at Caffè mooi, there's no better way to start the day," enthuses the young cellist. And there is another composer to whom Hornung pays special homage: Ludwig van Beethoven. "Beethoven's five sonatas for cello and piano taught anyone who hadn't yet grasped the cello's possibilities by the end of the 18th century a better lesson. The cello can express everything in music, and it touches us to the core." Before celebrating Beethoven's 250th anniversary in 2020, the biggest in many years, VivaCello will be paying homage to the composer several times, especially on Sunday, September 9th, with plenty of Beethoven, from the 1st Sonata to the 7th Symphony.

The festival will begin with the free event "Cello for All" on September 2 in the Liestal town church. A huge cello orchestra will play film music in which every cellist can take part, there will be musical cabaret with the Duo Calva and a self-portrait of a cello, narrated by the self-confessed cello fan Kurt Aeschbacher and the young musician Chiara Enderle. Numerous concerts will take place throughout the week at the Kulturhotel Guggenheim, the Kulturscheune and the Stadtkirche Liestal.
"It's a soul of an instrument, and that's why it appeals to us so strongly," Lukas Ott, the former mayor, confessed enthusiastically after attending a concert.

Advance booking www.kulturticket.ch
 

IncipitSearch is a search engine for music incipits that can be used to search music catalogs and music editions. Incipits are the first bars of a musical text that can be used to identify melodies. The starting point for IncipitSearch was the development of an incipit search for the digital catalog of the historical-critical edition "Christoph Willibald Gluck - Sämtliche Werke".

IncipitSearch links open music repositories. It is both a search engine with over 900,000 entries and a service that can be linked back to other directories and editions. IncipitSearch makes all data available as Linked Open Data for further use.

The application was developed by Anna Neovesky and Frederic von Vlahovits.
Neovesky is deputy director of the Digital Academy, a digital humanities research institute of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. She studied computer science, medieval history, modern and contemporary history in Leipzig and Würzburg and is doing her doctorate at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Von Vlahovits is a research associate at the Digital Academy. He studied Film Studies and Musicology in Mainz and is currently working on his doctorate at Johannes Gutenberg University.

The Paul Fortier Prize, endowed with 500 British pounds (660 Swiss francs), is an award of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) named after Paul Fortier (1939-2005), professor at the University of Manitoba (Canada). The award honors his long, active work in the field of digital humanities and is a special reminder of his encouragement and support for young scholars in the field.

Link to the application: https://incipitsearch.adwmainz.net/

Today, musicians in the field of new music no longer define themselves strictly through a concept of identity, but through combined identities of styles, different origins and technologies. These "modular identities" are very pronounced on the board of IGNM Bern.

The 2019 concert program is intended to present the many different forms of performance and question them in an accompanying discussion program. We are looking for project proposals that relate to one or more of the following four "themes": Pure Physicality, Extended Identities, Mix & Mash, Belonging.

Submissions are welcome until September 30.

Further information:
https://ignm-bern.ch/news/public-call-saison-2019
 

The City of Zurich has owned the listed residential building at Florastrasse 52 in the Riesbach district since 1957. From 1968, it was used by Musikschule Konservatorium Zürich (MKZ); the apartments became classrooms and offices for the school management. In 2015, voters approved the purchase of the property at Florhofgasse 6 for MKZ, which enabled MKZ to concentrate a large part of its teaching and administrative rooms in a single location. As announced in the referendum newspaper, MKZ was able to give up three rented properties in return, including the one on Florastrasse.

The house is now to be renovated and used for residential purposes again. Committed expenditure of CHF 3.51 million will be incurred for the overall refurbishment; the last refurbishment measures date back to the 1960s. For the conversion, including the loft conversion, the city council has approved a project loan of CHF 1.8 million in addition to the committed expenditure. A total of eight apartments will be built in the property: three 2½-room and three 3-room apartments as well as one 4-room and one 4½-room apartment; there will also be a studio in the basement. The cost-covering net rents are expected to be between CHF 1750 for a 73 m2 2½-room apartment on the mezzanine floor and CHF 2960 for the 147 m2 4½-room apartment on the top floor; the final rents will be set once the construction invoice is available.

The rather high rents for city apartments are not due to a luxurious fit-out. The rents here are also calculated on the basis of the cost rent, but the costs for the renovation and conversion of the listed building with its rather large rooms are higher than for other properties. In addition, energy and fire safety aspects must be taken into account during the renovation, as well as aspects relating to the preservation of listed buildings.

Since MKZ moved out in 2016, the property has been let to Raumbörse. The tenancy is limited until November 2018, as renovation and conversion work can only be carried out while the property is vacant. After the tenants move out, preparatory work will take place in the property for the actual construction work, which is scheduled to begin in early 2019. The apartments are scheduled to be occupied at the end of the same year.