Being the resident orchestra at the Lucerne Culture and Convention Center sounds very good and has inspired the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (LSO) for years. In everyday rehearsals, however, the musicians feel little of this glow. The rehearsal room is dark, the air is bad and the acoustics are completely inadequate. The orchestra has therefore been looking for a suitable home for years. Now it has come very close to achieving this goal with this project: A rehearsal house is to be built in Kriens, right next to the new Lucerne School of Music building and the Südpol cultural center, which also houses the Lucerne School of Music and the Lucerne Theater. The rehearsal house will also serve as a center for "children's and youth projects and a kind of competence center for inclusive music education", provide rehearsal rooms for LSO musicians and be open to other institutions. Now, as Numa Bischof Ullmann was delighted to announce at the press conference on September 26, the Foundation for the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra will sign the building lease agreement with the City of Lucerne and the Südpol condominium owners at the end of the week, the building application should be submitted by the end of the year, the ground-breaking ceremony is expected in spring and the new "workspace" should be ready by the end of 2019. A kind of "music campus" will be created at Südpol, where different generations will meet, training, professional life and amateur music-making will cross-fertilize each other and musical styles will merge.

The winners of the architectural competition were Enzmann Fischer & Büro Konstrukt AG, Lucerne, the same team that is also realizing the new HSLU building. The focus is on the functional character of the orchestra building. It stands on stilts in order to preserve the parking spaces. On the first level there are 10 individual rehearsal rooms, on the second 3 register rehearsal rooms and finally on the third the rehearsal hall with an average height of 10.5 meters and a cubic volume of 3900 cubic meters. There will be no other room of this size on the campus, making it very attractive for other users. Applied Acoustics GmbH from Gelterkinden is responsible for the acoustics. The schedule roof not only fits in well with the industrial environment, but also has a positive effect on sound distribution thanks to the ceiling sails.

Image: LSO / Enzmann Fischer & Büro Konstrukt AG, Lucerne

Rehearsal room

It is therefore intended to be a functional building that optimizes the orchestra members' rehearsal and practice routine, provides a home for the orchestra and creates space for the versatile educational work. Details of the operating costs will be announced at a later date. Private patrons and benefactors have already pledged 5 million towards the total construction costs of 8 million - a wonderful sign of the extraordinary solidarity of the people of Lucerne with their orchestra. Numa Bischof Ullmann, who is responsible for fundraising, is very grateful to them all. A crowdfunding campaign is also planned, which will culminate in the "Every seat - a building block" benefit concert on June 8, 2018. 75% of the tickets have already been sold and 100% of the proceeds will go to the new building. Should the public sector wish to contribute financially to the LSO building project, it would be welcomed with open arms.

So the days of rehearsing in stuffy, poor-sounding halls should soon be numbered. And not only that. It will be interesting to see how the relationships in the South Pole develop. As we all know, 1+1 makes more than 2 - may the Südpol triad develop into a polyphonic harmony.
 

Martin Maria Krüger, President of the German Music Council, explains that the importance of digitalization for culture and music in particular must be brought further into the focus of public debate. The joint interjection with Austria and Switzerland is an important impulse for the socio-political positioning of music and cultural life in the digital age.

Behind the interjection are Harald Huber, President of the Austrian Music Council, Stefano Kunz, Managing Director of the Swiss Music Council, Irène Philipp Ziebold, President of the Swiss Music Council, Martin Maria Krüger, President of the German Music Council, Christian Höppner, Secretary General of the German Music Council, and Paul Hertel, Vice President of the Austrian Music Council.

The interjection:
1. opportunities and challenges: the digital age offers both fascinating opportunities and fundamental challenges for our societies.
2. the digital age is first a cultural challenge and then a technological challenge.
3. media literacy is above all a cultural competence. At present, digitalization is treated almost exclusively from a technological point of view. It is not enough to equip classrooms with computers.
4 Artificial intelligence, the increasing virtualization of living environments and technological developments harbour potential for change for individuals and for coexistence in our societies. This includes changes in our own perception, in the perception of others, in communication and in reception behavior.
5) The digital age offers new opportunities to promote awareness of the immaterial and material value of creative work (oxygen of society). This also includes the transformation of analog business areas into the digital world.
6 The digital age inspires analogue life and vice versa: The fascinating possibilities of digitalization are giving rise to a new desire for analogue discovery.

Switzerland's cohesion across language borders cannot be taken for granted. The recent debates on foreign language teaching in some cantons show that communication across linguistic borders is always in need of new impetus.

The new exchange and support program EchangeChœurs enables children's and youth choirs from French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland, for example, to find a partner choir in another language region. Exchange projects with choirs from Italian- or Romansh-speaking Switzerland are also supported. Movetia provides an online exchange platform for finding partners. The two choirs that have found each other then plan a joint concert (or several concerts).

The financial support per exchange project depends on the number of participants and ranges from 3,000 to 7,000 francs. EchangeChoeurs also offers tips on organizing the choir exchange and other assistance, such as a list of phrases in two languages such as "Faites attention à l'intonation"/"Mind the intonation".

Choirs are particularly suitable for language and cultural exchange because choral singing combines language and music as an art form. With a jointly developed program and concert, the participating children and young people can not only practice their language skills, but also get to know another choir and its musical profile. The joint expression of musical emotions has a unifying effect.

The three project partners complement each other perfectly to implement the project. The Sophie and Karl Binding Foundation, for which the cohesion of the language regions is a central funding theme, is responsible for financing the projects and the funding program as a whole and provides the project management. The SKJF association provides its network in the children's and youth choir scene as well as its expertise in terms of content, and Movetia, which also implements a "class exchange program" for the federal government, is responsible for matching the choirs and the initial assessment of the applications. An advisory board with experienced experts in youth choral music from all parts of the country supports the project.

The termination of the agreement on intercantonal cooperation in the area of supra-regional cultural institutions was approved by a vote of 26,926 in favor (55.88%) to 21,258 against (44.12%). The municipalities of Feusisberg, Wollerau and Freienbach, which are most strongly oriented towards Zurich, achieved the highest approval rates of over 60 percent. The bill was rejected in the municipalities of Schwyz and Innerthal.

As part of a relief program, the cantonal government has presented the cantonal council with a package of measures consisting of task waivers, service reductions and burden shifts. One of the measures: in future, services in the area of cultural burden equalization should be paid from the lottery fund instead of the general state budget. To make this possible, the Council applied to withdraw from the cultural burden agreement at the next ordinary termination date at the end of 2021.

With the termination of the cultural burdens agreement, the canton's legal obligation to financially compensate for supra-regional cultural burdens no longer applies. It can therefore relieve its income statement to the tune of around CHF 1.8 million a year. However, cultural professionals fear that this will mean that less money will be available for cantonal cultural promotion from the lottery fund.

In the project description on the website of the Lucerne School of Music, the study is presented as follows: "Reviews of music recordings and performances are published daily in the daily press as well as on the Internet. A central function of such reviews is to offer the consumer a kind of orientation aid. (...) The present project (...) examines the function of criticism in the classical music market from the perspective of critics and consumers and determines the characteristics of music criticism that most influence consumer and purchasing behavior. Interviews and experiments as well as questionnaires and qualitative text analysis are used in the study." The project manager is Elena Alessandri. It is expected that the project will "provide a deeper understanding of the psychologically motivated behaviors of consumers caused by music criticism". "This understanding forms the basis for a more targeted and effective approach to music criticism, especially with regard to the lack of orientation caused by a music market that is almost impossible to navigate today."

Part of the project is a survey of people who enjoy listening to classical music. The survey will be conducted online and will be available here until the end of the year:
Link to the survey
 

Patricia Kopatchinskaja has been selected from 15 prizewinners on the recommendation of the Federal Jury for Music and will receive prize money of 100,000 Swiss francs.

The Federal Office of Culture FOC has awarded the Swiss Grand Prix Music for the fourth time. The award recognizes "the outstanding and innovative musical work of individual musicians or groups". Once again this year, the 15 prizewinners represent the entire spectrum of Swiss musical creation.

The fifteen winners of the 2017 Swiss Music Awards are Pascal Auberson (Lausanne), Andres Bosshard (Zurich), Albin Brun (Lucerne), Christophe Calpini (Longirod), Elina Duni (Zurich), Vera Kappeler (Halbenstein), Jürg Kienberger (Basel), Grégoire Maret (New York), Jojo Mayer (New York), Peter Scherer (Zurich), Endo Anaconda (Fankhaus-Trub), Töbi Tobler (Wittenbach), Helena Winkelman (Basel), Jürg Wyttenbach (Basel) and Patricia Kopatchinskaja (Bern), who receives the Swiss Grand Prix for Music.

This refers to projects "that strengthen the coexistence of people from different cultures in Switzerland and thus have a positive influence on social cohesion". The interactive, participatory element or the aspect of mediation must play an important role here. The project must be linked to an institution (e.g. an association, a cultural institution or a cultural event organizer).

Applications can be submitted immediately and at any time. The following documents must be submitted: Cover letter with coordinates of the applicant, brief summary of the project, detailed project description, information on the parties involved, budget with financing plan,

Applications should be sent by post to:
Landis & Gyr Foundation P.O. Box 7838 CH-6302 Zug
If you have any questions: Phone 041 724 23 12 or mail to regula.koch@lg-stiftung.ch

Two concerts in Boswil and Zurich at the beginning of September marked the start of the realignment of the Ensembles Boswil given. The ensemble, which has been in existence since 2007, is made up of around twenty students from various music academies in Switzerland. Works by the established composers Hindemith, Cage and Varèse were combined with contemporary pieces by Isabel Mundry and Philippe Kocher. Certainly not an overly spectacular concert program if there wasn't a long-term idea with potential behind it.

The starting point was to intensify cooperation with Swiss music academies: In addition to the further training of highly talented performers in contemporary music, young female composers should also be integrated into the project. Thus, an academy was launched, which was to be supported by the project What's now? was launched. "This networking of composers and young performers in the form of simultaneous masterclasses is, so to speak, the core idea of the academy," explains project manager Stefanie C. Braun.

A master class in composition was therefore also held as part of the rehearsals for the Boswil ensemble's September concert. Both events were held in collaboration with the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). The selection process was differentiated, as Braun explains: "The composers applied to us with their CV and samples of their work in response to a call for applications from the Künstlerhaus or the Academy. The work samples included the scores as well as audio and video material of the works."

The director of the master class, Isabel Mundry, Felix Baumann from the ZHdK, Michael Schneider, the managing director of the Künstlerhaus, and Stefanie Braun reviewed the work samples together and then invited six participants to Boswil based on their suitability, technique, training, experience and artistic expressiveness: In contrast to courses for instrumentalists, "who are all still university students, the Academy for New Music is aimed at composers after or in their Masters".

As part of the master class in composition, there was a lively exchange with the performers present, who rehearsed the aforementioned concert program in parallel under the direction of the accomplished, internationally renowned conductor Peter Tilling. The concerts in Boswil and Zurich were well attended.

A second rehearsal phase will then follow in January 2018, during which the new works that the six composers have created in the meantime will be rehearsed and performed. An impressive concept, the support of which is secured by a three-year contract with the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Zug/Munich. According to Stefanie Braun, negotiations are already underway with the universities of Lausanne and Basel for the next two editions of the academy.

A project database forms the first milestone of the new information and exchange portal "Music and Integration", which presents the entire range of initiatives, projects and events relating to the topic. The aim is to intensify the exchange of experience and communication between stakeholders and organizers of music-related integration projects and thus strengthen the diversity and quality of the measures on offer.

To this end, the platform will be successively expanded until spring 2018 with a central forum for exchange and a wide range of thematic information, including introductory articles as well as work aids and practical materials.

The MIZ can build on its experience with the platform "Musik macht Heimat - Engagement für Dialog", which was launched in October 2015. It was created in response to the diverse and often impromptu aid projects for refugees and made the commitment of associations, private individuals and public institutions in the music sector visible for the first time.

More info: integration.miz.org

According to the Music Consumer Insight Report 2017 "Connecting with Music" by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), more than one in two (53%) 16 to 24-year-olds worldwide already "rip" music. Germany is below the global average in these areas: here, 30% of users obtain musical content from unlicensed sources and a total of 26% use stream rippers.

According to the report, 13 to 15-year-olds have an intensive relationship with music: despite the large number of competing media, 85% of them stream music, 79% via video streaming services and 67% via audio streaming services, an increase of 13 percentage points compared to the previous year. Of the young audio streamers, 37% are subscribers to paid services, while 62% stream ad-supported music.

User-upload video services such as YouTube have the largest share of on-demand streaming time, but do not give creators and their partners a fair share of the revenue, writes the IFPI. Yet 85 percent of YouTube visitors now use the site to listen to music every month, 76 percent of them even stream music they already know.

On the weekend of September 16/17, many wheels and circles turned in the round of the "Pantheon" in Muttenz, in this unadorned industrial building from the 1960s in no man's land between the highway junction, railroad and residential area. Ten years ago, the mighty round hall was renovated and converted into a classic car museum. Since then, the venue and restaurant have been increasingly booked for events.

The location proved to be ideal for the performances of the youth choir opera in several respects The big turn. There was no need for a backdrop - and not just for reasons of economy - as the theme of "turning" was impressively illustrated both by the omnipresent wheels of the vintage cars and the shape of the building. When the goddess Fortuna then also did her rounds on the tandem, on the wheel and on the lid of the drinking bottle and the performers marched forwards or backwards in a circle, depending on the turn of the play, the symbolism was complete.
 

Lukas Holliger's libretto essentially consists of four life stories whose protagonists, for various reasons, want to turn back the clock, but then come to the realization that this is not possible in real life, nor is it desirable. The author has succeeded in creating a straightforward, simple yet profound examination of one of the great human issues that not only children and young people are concerned with: How can we accept what is unchangeable, learn lessons for our present lives and look to the future. Beat Vögele's music supports this search for meaning excellently with its colorfulness and drama. The complex score was competently interpreted by an outstanding chamber orchestra consisting of teachers from the Music Academy. Five choirs from the Basel Music School, graded according to age, had far more to do than simply sing beautifully. From announcing impending doom to symbolizing the course of time to choreographed, active acting, the young performers had many functions to fulfil. At the same time, the demanding music had to be mastered by the singers. This was especially true for the young soloists. The scene with bank manager Quentin's nightmares was particularly gripping: Quentin will later regret having turned back the clock, as he is confronted with dark spots in his past that he would rather not be reminded of. "Forwards they are sad, backwards they are sad", the saying goes.

At the end, the "deus ex machina" appears in the person of the devil and gives the play a saving twist. Fortuna is distracted and the tandem is turned in the opposite direction, so that the goddess of fate drives into the future again without realizing it. The chorus intones "Everything has its time" and reminds us that once missed, it is almost impossible to make up for it.
 

The choir at the Basel Music School is a model of success that is second to none. Susanne Würmli-Kollhopp started with the first children's choir at the Riehen Music School around 1980. From 1983, she continued and expanded her choral work at the Basel Music School. Maria Laschinger, who has been team-teaching the choirs together with Regina Hui, Beat Vögele and Christa Andres since 2010, once went through the choir school herself. She sang under Susanne Würmli for 30 years and was finally elected as her successor in 2007. The social and intergenerational aspects of her work are very important to the management team. Families" were formed from the 180 participants: one to three children from each of the five choirs. This created a welcome exchange and cohesion in which the older members were able to look after the younger ones.

There is no need to worry about new blood in Basel. Young people who enjoy singing sign up on their own and don't need to be sought out.
On Saturday, September 23, one of the choirs will sing in the world premiere of a work by Argentinian composer Guillermo Klein at the Musik-Akademie ceremony in St. Martin's Church. The European Youth Choir Festival 2018 in Basel is set to be another highlight and the Midsummer Choir Festival in Margarethenpark is on the program in June 2018.
 

Photo: Werner Laschinger

"We have observed that the more beguiling the music we hear, the more seductive we experience touch," explains study leader Tom Fritz. The neuroscientists came to this conclusion with the help of incognito touch. They had study participants stretch their forearm through a curtain and stroke it behind it with a precisely controlled movement using a brush robot. At the same time, the participants listened to various pieces of music, which they then rated themselves on a scale ranging from "not sexy at all" to "extremely sexy".

The interesting thing is that even when the test subjects learned before the experiment that they were not being stroked by a real person but by a robot, the music influenced how sexy the touch was perceived. This robot, an automatically controlled brush, was designed to control the length and intensity of the touch. At the same time, its use also showed that the observed so-called transfer effects of music on touch must be based on very basic mechanisms - and not on the idea of being touched by a person of a certain gender and attractiveness level listening to the same seductive music.

One possible explanation could be that the emotional expression of individual musical sounds follows the same dynamic as that of a touch. A sad sound is therefore processed in a similar way to a sad touch in terms of its rhythm, and an aggressive sound in the same way as an aggressive touch. Accordingly, we access areas of the brain that are responsible for both touch and movement in order to process music more precisely.

Such transfer effects, in which sensory perceptions change depending on the music we are listening to, have also been observed in other areas. For example, the louder the music we are listening to, the richer and brighter the colors we choose.

Twenty-three applications for a grant and six applications for a Zug Work Year were received in 2017, writes the Canton of Zug. The grants in the music category went to Fabienne Ambühl and Samuel Büttiker (CHF 14,000 each) and Valerie Koloszár and Christof Zurbuchen (CHF 10,000).

CHF 120,000 is available, which can be used for independent artistic creation, the realization of a specific project or as a contribution to further education. The grants and the work year are financed from the lottery fund.

The Zug Work Year, endowed with 50,000 Swiss francs, goes to theater artist Karin Arnold. Karin Arnold was born in 1974 and lived in Zug until 1995. She completed her artistic training at the Hochschule Musik und Theater in Zurich (now Zurich University of the Arts). She has been working as a freelance director since 2006 and founded the "mercimax" collective in the same year.

Painting, drilling and fine-tuning are still taking place in the Great Hall of the Basel Music Academy. But everything is actually ready for the Jour de Fête on September 23. The history of today's music campus, which provides space for musical education in its most diverse forms on Leonhardsgraben in the heart of the city, began 150 years ago with the founding of the music school. This long history is documented in the commemorative publication Sound art goes to schooland the exhibition Avant-garde goes to school makes it visible and audible.

Around 1000 musicians will take part in 100 events on various stages on the festival day on September 23. As Stephan Schmidt, Director of Musik-Akademie Basel/Musikhochschulen FHNW, and Anna Brugnoni, Head of Musikschule Basel, explained at today's press conference, the aim is to show what "music" is and to provide an insight into the work that needs to be done in order to preserve music as a distinct form of thinking and feeling in the future. Basel's patrons and foundations are aware of the importance of this work - think of the Jazzcampus or the Vera Oeri Library, for example - and so, thanks to the generous support of Sabine Duschmalé-Oeri, the large hall will also be completed on time. On the one hand, it will be preserved as a historical gem, as the preservation order has accompanied the conversion process. On the other hand, state-of-the-art technology ensures that it can be used intensively and in a variety of ways - for the first time at the Jour de Fête.
 

According to the press release from the City of Biel, the City of Biel and the cultural scene will express their gratitude to her at the Culture Award ceremony on November 28, 2017.

The Biel/Bienne Department of Culture fulfills coordination, information, administrative and cultural policy tasks and manages a budget of around 11 million francs. Around 30 cultural foundations and associations receive annual subsidies. Numerous events and the creation of works are supported on a selective basis. It looks after the city's collections of art and cultural assets. Since 1986, the Department of Culture has also been responsible for two cultural venues: the Alte Krone and the Kulturfabrik Gurzelen.