Geneviève Tschumi, who has been studying at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2014, received not only the first prize, the Central German Baroque Music Prize, but also two special prizes, one from the Centre for Telemann Care and Research Magdeburg and one from the Bach Archive Leipzig, according to the organizers.

Second prize went to mezzo-soprano Marian Dijkhuizen (Netherlands) and third prize to soprano Johanna Knauth (Germany).

The International Telemann Competition has been held every two years since 2001. In 2017, it was announced for singing for the first time. According to the organizers' press release, 49 singers registered. 35 artists performed in the first round, 16 in the second and finally 6 singers in the final. The competition for chamber music is to be held in 2019.

www.telemann.org
 

The idea for the festival came from Reto Zürcher, co-owner of the Hotel Restaurant Simmenfälle. Together with Bernese musicians Nik Rechsteiner and Urs Widmer, he is organizing the music event for the first time from 23 to 25 June.

On Friday, local hero Rumble Jim opens the festival with rockabilly and music from the 1950s on an outdoor stage. The headliner of the evening is Bernese multi-instrumentalist Mich Gerber, who builds musical bridges between the Orient and the Occident, between urban, classical and jazz, between old and new music.

On Saturday, Thun rock band The Souls, Bernese rap group Churchhill and Troubas Kater will be among those performing. There will be international acts in the hall of the Simmenfälle restaurant, with Mani Orrason from Iceland and Fenne Lily from the UK.

The Solothurn composer Hermann Meier (1906-2002) is today one of the most important representatives of the early avant-garde of Swiss music. Always remaining in the background, Meier wrote works that were "spared" from criticism and correction and are therefore particularly original and have retained a certain individuality. His compositional techniques were also extremely independent, large-scale and often colorful.

The important task of making Hermann Meier's oeuvre known to a wider audience in the hope that his works will be given a more frequent place in the concerts of Swiss orchestras and other musicians in the future was the motive behind this symposium. Although Meier's music was rarely performed during his lifetime, he was aware of his contemporaneity. His extensive oeuvre includes over twenty orchestral works that have never been performed. His compositional style seemed too radical for the Swiss musical landscape at the time. It was not until the 1980s that some of his works saw the light of day thanks to the efforts of composer and pianist Urs Peter Schneider, who developed a close collaboration with Meier. Other important figures in the promotion of Meier's music are the pianist Dominik Blum and the composer and publisher Marc Kilchenmann, on whose initiative the Basel Sinfonietta performed two major orchestral works by Meier in 2010. (The Swiss Music Newspaper brought an Article in SMZ 1/2010, p. 18 f., Editor's note.)

Hermann Meier's estate has been held by the Paul Sacher Foundation since 2009 and has been part of the research project The eye composes will be investigated. The research is scheduled to be completed in 2017, when a monographic exhibition will also be held at the Solothurn Art Museum.

During the two-day symposium, lectures on Hermann Meier's music and graphic notation were given by Heidy Zimmermann (Paul Sacher Foundation, Basel), David Magnus (Berlin), Pascal Decroupet (Nice), Roman Brotbeck (Bern), Michel Roth (Basel), Marc Kilchenmann (Basel), Michelle Ziegler (Bern), Jörg Jewanski (Münster), Doris Lanz (Bern), Christoph Haffter (Basel) and Michael Harenberg (Bern).

The diverse program of lectures made for two varied but compact days. The focus, of course, was on Hermann Meier, his works, compositional technique and various insights into forms of graphic notation.

In her lecture, Heidy Zimmermann reflected on the basics of Meier's graphic works. In most cases of graphic notation, we are dealing with finished, completed scores that contain graphics or whose notation is graphic. In Hermann Meier's case, however, the graphics are used in the thought process itself, not in the finished product - the score. It was interesting to gain an insight into Meier's creative process and to be able to see some of his graphic works that are in the Paul Sacher Foundation.

Using examples of scores from the post-war avant-garde, David Magnus explained various graphic notations that are different for each composer and often cannot be assigned to any genre. The focus was on the Greek composer Anestis Logothetis and his notation, whose end product - the score - is, in contrast to Hermann Meier, a graphic system that can produce a different sound image each time it is reread.

Pascal Decroupet's lecture on the role of pictorial and graphic sketches in serial and post-serial composers was particularly interesting. After 1945, there were significant reorganizations in the areas of sound and context. New ideas led to new forms of representation, space now became an independent parameter, electronic music, aleatoric music and extended playing techniques required new visual solutions. In addition to examples from the music of Pierre Boulez, the lecture focused on Stockhausen's masterpiece Groups.

Roman Brotbeck investigated the relationship between Wladimir Vogel and his pupil Hermann Meier. Vogel had intensive contact with Meier, which later faded; after five years, the lessons failed. Meier's piano piece from 1947 and works by other Vogel students were compared. It turned out that Meier maintained his own style. Even under the influence of Wladimir Vogel, Meier sees dodecaphony not as a final goal, but as a transitory stage; he composes not only with the row, but "over the row" - like an overcoming of abstract constructivism, sometimes structured, sometimes playful in context.

Michel Roth provided a reading protocol of all of Hermann Meier's orchestral works, which seemed like a clear statement about Meier's enormous opus.

In his presentation, Marc Kilchenmann dealt with the role of graphic plans in Hermann Meier's compositional process. Meier's estate contains around 150 graphic plans and 300 sketches in workbooks. Over time, Meier's plans became increasingly complex and multi-layered. The lecture explained the relevance of the development of Meier's graphics with regard to his compositional work.

Michelle Ziegler, whose dissertation on Hermann Meier's piano works is part of the research project The eye composes dealt with Meier's electronic creative phase on the basis of the composition Sound surface structure or wall music for Hans Oesch (1970-71) and the second piece for two pianos, two harpsichords and two electric organs (1973). Meier's oeuvre is divided into different phases: the 195s were supplemented by orchestral works, the 1960s by music for keyboard instruments. Meier's phase for electronic music is clearly attributable to the 1970s, although he had already shown an interest in it earlier. Only one of his electronic compositions has ever been realized in the studio.

Jörg Jenawski spoke about the relationship between music and painting in the 20th century. He opened up the question of whether Hermann Meier had a similar relationship in his work: Meier's interest in the visual arts (especially his preference for Mondrian's works), architecture, visits to formative exhibitions, Meier's lessons with Wladimir Vogel with references to the visual arts (also the subject of Doris Lanz's lecture) - all of this indicates that the sound movements in his scores can be understood as groups of instruments, like painterly movements and areas of color.

The lectures by Christoph Haffter and Michael Harenberg dealt with specific works by Hermann Meier, the orchestral works of the 1960s, the avant-garde aspirations that this period brought with it (Haffter) and the only electronic work that was realized in the experimental studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of the SWR in Freiburg (Harenberg). Using the orchestral piece from 1986 as an example, Haffter showed how Meier dealt with compositional problems and how his solutions differed from composers of his time. Michael Harenberg spoke about the conditions with which Hermann Meier was confronted in the realization of his electronic piece.

A conversation with contemporary witnesses Urs Peter Schneider and Dominik Blum, moderated by Florian Hauser, was also recorded by SRF2 Kultur and gave the audience a deeper insight into Meier's personality, his collaboration with Schneider and Blum, but also his high degree of self-criticism.

The concert by pianist Gilles Grimaître with works by Hermann Meier (including a world premiere - the piano piece from 1947) and Galina Ustvolskaya was remarkable. The concert program was an exciting mixture of different extremes: from exemplary, almost modest twelve-tone technique in Meier's Piano Piece from 1947 and charged tension in Ustvolskaya's Sonata No. 1, to the seething and ticking of the Piano Piece from 1987 and the merciless, quivering cluster chords in Ustvolskaya's Sixth Sonata, which made the hall floor tremble.

The symposium The eye composes was very successful and has come one step closer to the goal of making Hermann Meier's work better known to the public. Interestingly organized, with topics that both presented Hermann Meier as an exceptional composer and gave a good insight into the general music scene at the time and the trends during Meier's lifetime and creative period, after two days of the symposium I had the feeling that I now knew a little about the composer Hermann Meier and am eager to hear more of his remarkable music. The hope now is that there will be enough open ears in more important circles to place the name Hermann Meier in the orchestral repertoire and give him, like so many forgotten, undiscovered composers, a voice and thus say something meaningful, thoughtful or important about their (and our) time. By (re)discovering valuable legacies that our culture has left us, we have the chance to make the canon we pass on less one-sided and superficial.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi is no stranger to fame; for a long time he was even a cult figure. How can it be explained that an important work has only now come to light?

Mario Schwarz: There is an endless amount of material stored in the monastery libraries and there are few people who rummage around. One of them is Friedrich Hägele from Aalen. He has Pergolesi's Dixit Dominus was unearthed in the library of the canons' monastery of Beromünster. The Missa Solemnis in C con organo concertante by František Xaver Brixi, which we are performing in the same concert, was found by Karlheinz Ostermann from Silz in Tyrol, like many others, in the library of Ottobeuren Monastery. It is a laborious task that not everyone takes on. You don't find scores, but individual parts, copies or even copies of copies. In Pergolesi's case, the material was particularly miserable. Everyone who had anything to do with it cursed the poor scribe who was at work there. I didn't deal with this material myself. But there were a thousand questions in the score produced from it; I spent hours on the phone with the editor.

Was the work worth it? Although Pergolesi was only 26 years old, his catalog of works contains a considerable number of church compositions, including another "Dixit Dominus".

It is a wonderful work in terms of its structure, larger than its sister work, and I also think that it has a future. It shows a clever distribution of the solos, the solo ensembles and the choir, there is a nice variety. In addition, this music is not only very singable, but also very clearly composed in relation to the text. The beginning, for example, with the declamatory "Dixit" call gets under your skin, or the end with the long note values in the stile antico to "Sicut erat in principio" (As it was in the beginning) has real grandeur. It is all very emotional and also pictorial - an organ point marks the footstool for the Lord's feet, which the enemies are to become.
 

How certain is the authorship? According to MGG, the legendary reputation of the genius, who died young, led to a flourishing trade in falsely attributed or forged compositions. In Pergolesi's case, the ratio of authentic to fake works is said to have peaked at 1 to 10.

There is no proof of the authenticity of this work; to date, no original sheet music or even a reference to a performance has been found. It is also unknown how the work ended up in Beromünster Abbey - and incidentally, a much abridged version also ended up in the library of Einsiedeln Abbey. There is no historical evidence, only the compositional handwriting as we know it from the confirmed works and which can be found here, typical rhythms, the treatment of fermatas. There is no proof, but stylistically one has the strong feeling that a very good composer was at work here and that the publisher is right to publish it under the name Pergolesi.

Mario Schwarz has conducted the Collegium Musicum Ostschweiz for more than 40 years. He has particularly made a name for himself with world premieres by Swiss composers, for example in 2004 with the opera Tredeschin by Gion Antoni Derungs. In 2009, he was able to launch Heinrich von Herzogenberg's violin concerto. In 2010, he conducted Derungs' scenic musical work on the 100th anniversary of Henry Dunant's death Henry Dunant - The libretto was written by Hans-Rudolf Merz (SMZ 12/2010, page 25).

During the residency from August 19 to September 17, 2017, a song with piano or chamber orchestra accompaniment is to be created. A specific subject is not specified, but according to the call for applications, "an attempt should be made to find a theme in collaboration with the artist."

All Swiss composers living abroad are invited to apply. The residency scholarship includes accommodation (room in the Schoeck Villa), a contribution towards living and travel expenses and a fee of CHF 1,500 for the composition. The composition is to be performed in Brunnen in 2018.

The submission must be made electronically by April 13, 2017 to info@schoeckfestival.ch

The application form and the detailed call for applications are available on the website of the Organization of the Swiss Abroad:
http://aso.ch/de/information/news-archiv/auslandschweizer-kuenstler-erneut-ein-ankerplatz-in-brunnen?searchText=schoeck

The Organization of the Swiss Abroad awarded the "Artist in Residence" residency scholarship in Brunnen for the first time in 2016 because, according to the organization, "the Swiss Abroad Square on Lake Lucerne in Brunnen should also become an anchor point for Swiss artists living abroad".
 

Accordionist Goran Kovačević was born in Schaffhausen in 1971. He studied at the Winterthur Conservatory and the State University of Music in Trossingen and has won prizes at various international competitions; in 2013 he was awarded a studio scholarship in Rome by the Canton of St.Gallen. He lives with his family in Engelburg near St.Gallen.

Willi Valotti is one of the innovators of Swiss folk music - from his very first band, the "Echo vom Hemberg", and the former "Kapelle Heirassa" to the "Alderbuebe", which he has helped shape for 52 years, to the "item Quartett" and "Willis Wyberkapelle". Valotti trained as an accordion teacher in Winterthur and studied harmony with Max Lang, double bass in Zurich and arrangement and composition in Schaffhausen.

The sponsorship award goes to the writer, journalist and musician Frédéric Zwicker, born in 1983, who attracted attention in 2016 with his debut novel "Hier können Sie im Kreis gehen!". Politically, he is the singer of the band Knuts Koffer, which wrote a song against the enforcement initiative, as well as a journalist who writes about sexism at the St.Gallen Openair and latent racism in the wrestling scene.
 

The owner strategy determines the scope for the strategy of the Board of Trustees with overarching guidelines. According to the Canton of Thurgau, the ownership strategy must be reviewed every four years and adapted to new situations if necessary. The Cultural Foundation should retain its autonomy and independence, the Cantonal Government states in the Ownership Strategy 2017 to 2020.

The Cultural Foundation of the Canton of Thurgau was founded in 1991 by the cantonal government. It is a foundation under public law that supplements the canton's cultural promotion activities. According to its ownership strategy, the Cultural Foundation's sole purpose is to promote contemporary professional cultural activities. Its aim is to contribute to a diverse cultural life in the canton and to help create an attractive environment for professional artists. The Cultural Foundation is financed by the lottery fund.
 

Compared to 2015, the number of reports had more than doubled, from 469 registered attacks in 2015 to 1028 in 2016. Freemuse counted 840 cases of censorship and 188 violent attacks on musicians. Examples include the violent deaths of musicians Amjad Sabri in Pakistan and Pascal Treasury Nshimirimana in Burundi, as well as the death of a 15-year-old in Iraq who was executed by the so-called Islamic State for listening to Western music.

The highest number of incidents (30) was recorded in Iran. The country has been the most conspicuous since 2012, when Freemuse began documenting threats. It is followed in the inglorious list by Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, China, Russia, Malaysia, Syria, Tanzania and Uzbekistan.

Freemuse was founded in 1998 at the World Conference on Music and Censorship in Copenhagen. In 2009, it received the IMC Musical Rights Award from the UNESCO Music Council.

More info: freemuse.org
 

Like pattering rain, powerful drum rolls penetrate even the furthest cracks of the sprawling Toni-Area at twelve o'clock. Six young percussionists, positioned in a semicircle on the spacious cascading staircase, the central passageway through the buildings, interpret Xenakis' Peaux from Pléiades (1978) and cast a spell over even those who just happen to be passing by.

The reception of Xenakisʼ musical oeuvre and his positioning in New Music have long been subject to various stereotypes. At the latest since the treatise published in 1963 musiques formellesin which he sought to capture musical structures in mathematical formulas, it was often prematurely viewed in terms of parallels between music and mathematics. The premiere of Metastasis ice for 61 instruments brought Xenakis his compositional breakthrough in Donaueschingen in 1955. The starting point of the work was hyperbolic curves, which later also formed the basis of the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Exhibition, which he created with Le Corbusier. This cemented another superficial view of his work, namely the unity of architecture and composition.
 

The Zurich conference on February 23-24, 2017, on the other hand, focused on a wide variety of perspectives and the visionary diversity of his compositions. These are reflected not least in sensual, visual and transmedial qualities, as well as in references to the world and associative work titles. Using previously unexplored sketches, Benoît Gibson (Evora) showed how Xenakis arrived at compositional decisions in a multi-stage and playful manner. The interpretation of the scores, which is often reduced to formalized aspects, is diametrically opposed to this processuality. Jörn Peter Hiekel emphasized that the world references created by Xenakis himself were given too little attention in common Xenakis images. An Metastasis ice he showed, for example, how Xenakis introduced the concept of the masses into music for the first time by musically processing his own biographical experiences of the political upheavals of the Second World War.

Using the legendary IBM 7090, Xenakis pioneered the possibilities of the computer for compositional processes back in the 1960s. Since then, he has been considered a pioneer among computer-based composers. Philippe Kocher, however, sees Xenakisʼ pioneering achievement not in mathematical formalization or exact repeatability, but in his early turn to non-musical methods.

How can three-dimensional hyperbolic curves be translated into traditional musical notation? Xenakisʼ graphic scores create an open space of interpretation through multi-layered visual qualities. "The linking of spatial and musical imagination is actually a transdisciplinary process", Lars Heusser stated in his contribution You have the good fortune of being an architect was established. Heusser illustrated the fact that the translation of the sketches into the rigid corset of the classical stave leads to a shift from ambiguity to unambiguity with concrete score details.

With his transmedia works, Xenakis also anticipated trends in contemporary interdisciplinary art. The vision of interweaving sound, space and light to create cosmic dimensions, in the spirit of the space travel euphoria of the seventies, was realized in various Polytopes around. As a conductor at the mixing desk, he directed room-filling productions that combined sound with light and laser effects. The spectacular highlight was the 1978 Le Diatopewith the performance of La Légende dʼEer, geste de lumière et de son, for the opening of the Pompidou Center. "Le Diatope is now just a myth and lives on in fragmentary stories told by guests at the performance," said Nicolas Buzzi and attempted an approximation at the night concert. The planned multimedia realization could not take place. The sound experience was all the more captivating: twelve loudspeakers surrounded the audience, which was freely distributed throughout the hall, creating such a suction effect that it almost created a multi-sensory perception.

Xenakis repeatedly emphasized the idea of the musical work as a living organism. At the soloists' concert, Martina Schucan (cello) and Ermis Theodorakis (piano) breathed new life into key works such as Kottos for cello solo (1977) and Herma for piano solo (1961) literally comes to life through her virtuoso interpretation.

A clichéd, narrow view of Xenakisʼ multifaceted musical oeuvre could definitely be reduced to absurdity at the Zurich conference.
 

A Federal Yodelling Festival is awarded every three years to a location within one of the five sub-associations. In 2017, it will take place in Brig. In 2020, the rotation is at the Northwest Switzerland Yodelling Association NWSJV, which had previously nominated Basel to host the event.

This will be the first time since 1924 that Basel has hosted this traditional major event for Swiss customs. At that time, it was the first ever nationwide event for yodelers. The bid from Basel is being jointly supported by various yodelling clubs from the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft as well as the north-western Swiss associations of alphorn players and flag-wavers.

During the three-day festival in Basel, the active participants are judged by a jury in various pubs and squares in the city. There is also a ceremony and a large parade on Sunday afternoon. Over 150,000 visitors are expected to experience traditional Swiss customs in the urban environment of the cultural city of Basel.

The initiators of the Yodelling Festival are also already in contact with the organizers of the "Summerblues Basel" festival, which will take place in Kleinbasel on the Friday of the Swiss Yodelling Festival. Possible synergies are being examined and sought by both sides.

In mid-February, the Media Commission of the National Council, headed by its President Nathalie Rickli, published a Motion proposed abolishing the SRG's special-interest radio stations (Radio Swiss Jazz, Radio Swiss Classic, Radio Swiss Pop, Virus, Musikwelle and Option Music).

Music associations are fighting back. The Swiss Music Syndicate together with Music Creators Switzerland published a press release at the beginning of March entitled Closure of special interest channels: Great damage, no savings. According to the press release, the special-interest radio stations "contribute significantly to the success of Swiss music", as the SRG's special-interest radio stations play much more Swiss music than commercial private radio stations. Over 1.5 million Swiss francs in copyright royalties are paid to local artists. The Swiss Recording Artists' Association, the Swiss Musicians' Association, Helvetiarockt, IndieSuisse, IFPI, the Swiss Performers' Cooperative and the Swiss Music Council are among the signatories.

Now Urs Wäckerli (Lebewohlfabrik Zurich), Adrian Keller (Jazztime), Christian Rentsch (author of the petition and journalist), Anders Stokholm (initiator) and Peewee Windmüller (Jazz'n'more) the online petition Hands off the special interest radio stations! which, according to the website, "asks the responsible committees in the Federal Parliament to refrain from closing these special-interest channels."

Information on the petition and how to sign it can be found here:
https://prospartenradio.jimdo.com

The petition can also be signed directly here:
https://www.petitionen24.com/hande_weg_von_den_spartenradios

In the 2015/16 season, the ZKO recorded record capacity utilization of 82% on average. Since the 2013/14 season, this figure has increased by almost 30 percent, writes the ZKO. The absolute number of visitors has also risen: While 54,335 people attended a ZKO concert in the previous season, the figure was 61,994 last season.

The ZKO claims a leading role in family concerts: it cites the umbrella organization of Swiss professional orchestras in its 2014/15 annual statistics, according to which the ZKO organizes the most concerts for children compared to other Swiss orchestras. In the 2015/16 season, a total of 37 Nuggi-, Krabbel-, Purzel- and abc-concerts for young families with their children aged 0 and over took place in the ZKO-Haus. The occupancy rate was 87 percent.

The ZKO is increasingly generating its own income. Ticket revenues and acquired non-governmental partner contributions account for an ever larger share of total income. In the 2014/15 season, the ZKO's own profitability amounted to 52.4%. This was further increased to 56.5% in the 2015/16 season.

The universities are rated according to both academic reputation and the career opportunities of graduates. Zurich and Geneva achieve the same score for the latter, Geneva the slightly higher score for academic reputation. No reasons are given for the massive changes.

The reliability of the ranking should be treated with caution, but it does play a certain role in the assessment of universities worldwide.

The whole list:
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2017/performing-arts

As part of the implementation of the Culture Agenda 2020, the city of Lucerne wants to promote and support the city's creative industries. According to the city's press release, this involves companies that "manufacture market-oriented products or realize projects that have a creative-artistic background or are related to this".

The credit of CHF 100,000 per year is intended to support projects and initiatives that "promote the development of a vibrant creative industry in the city of Lucerne". According to the city, this is not additional production or event funding for cultural projects. The tender documents are available on the website www.kultur.stadtluzern.ch accessible. The deadline for submission is May 18, 2017.

It was the idea of Christoph Müller, one of Switzerland's most active concert managers, to launch the Basel Composition Competition (BCC), a competition for unperformed works for chamber or symphony orchestras lasting no more than 20 minutes. The BCC was organized by Müller's agency Artistic Management GmbH. The Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel made its expertise available, but did not support the competition financially, which would have been incompatible with the foundation's purpose. The competition was not subsidized by the public sector either; instead, funding was provided by private individuals and foundations. The high prize money of CHF 100,000 - divided into CHF 60,000 for the first-place winner, CHF 25,000 for the second-place winner and CHF 15,000 for the third-place winner - was certainly one of the reasons why around 450 works were submitted, a figure that surprised even the organizers.

Christoph Müller and his colleagues managed to put together a competition jury with some illustrious names. The members were Wolfgang Rihm (president), Felix Meyer, director of the Paul Sacher Foundation, Oliver Knussen, one of the leading English composers and conductors, the Swiss composer Michael Jarrell, professor in Vienna, Matthias Arter, solo oboist in the Basel Chamber Orchestra, and Soyoung Yoon, first concertmaster of the Basel Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, Rihm and Knussen were unable to take part due to illness. At the last minute, another important contemporary composer, the Austrian Georg Friedrich Haas, who now works in New York, was recruited as a jury member, while Michael Jarrell took over the chairmanship.

The fact that a single composer, the Basel-based Andrea Scartazzini, not an actual jury member, reduced the 450 entries submitted to the jury to 150 is not without its problems. Although Christoph Müller makes no secret of the fact that the jury president defines the aesthetics of the works selected and awarded prizes, it is surprising that none of the works performed in the three competition concerts came from the USA, Great Britain, France, Finland or an Eastern European country, even though compositions from these countries make up a very significant proportion of contemporary music performed worldwide.

For the listener, it was in any case a rewarding, albeit strenuous, undertaking to listen to the concerts in the large foyer of the Theater Basel. The music city of Basel can be proud of the fact that it has two ensembles, the Basel Chamber Orchestra (KOB) and the Basel Symphony Orchestra (SOB), which can make even the most complicated modern scores resound. The two conductors Franck Ollu, who rehearsed seven works with the KOB, and Francesc Prat, who rehearsed three works with the SOB, played a significant role in the well-prepared interpretation of the ten selected pieces.

The BCC wanted the composers to give a short introduction to their work, and descriptions of their works were also printed in the informative program booklet. Once again, however, it turned out that most authors are unable to express themselves clearly about their work, and the published texts are often not free of unintentional humor. On the other hand, it was an excellent idea of the organizers that the composer and the composers introduced school classes to their work in advance and were thus presumably able to convey a particularly authentic approach to the young people.

At the last competition event on Sunday morning, both orchestras played the three prize-winning pieces in front of a somewhat larger audience. As always, it was interesting to encounter the works a second time, even if they were not necessarily the compositions I had given the best chances. Michael Jarrell said at the award ceremony that it had not been difficult for once to determine the order of the top three. The 1st prize in the Basel Composition Competition went to Víctor Ibarra from Mexico, born in 1978, with In Memoriaminspired by a work by the Catalan painter Antoni Tàpies as well as the death of his mother and the birth of his first son. The expressive work, in which the composer "explores the opposites that characterize our lives: Beginning and end, joy and sorrow, fullness and emptiness, life and death ...", seems to me, with its woodwind multiphonics, extensive use of percussion and powerful brass, to be more an example of mainstream modernism which, with its relatively elaborate scoring, will have little chance of being performed frequently in the future. Something similar must be said about After Last October which won 2nd prize. It was written by Pasquale Corrado, born in southern Italy in 1979, who, like Ibarra, was inspired by a work of art (the Estasi di santa Cecilia by Raphael) and was also inspired to compose it by the birth of his child. The piece is a rather formless sound continuum with interesting percussion sounds, which one enjoys listening to without really being fascinated by it. Hannah Hanbiel Choi, a composer born in 1982 in Seoul, South Korea, who now lives in Berlin, won 3rd prize. Her Hide and Seek was the only one of the three pieces that worked even better in the repetition than in the first performance. The relatively simple concept of making two clearly distinguishable musical materials appear and disappear and changing them constantly is made into a real listening pleasure by an original orchestration that takes all instrumental groups into account.

Among the seven works that did not make it to the final were two compositions that deserved further performances, alongside naïve, well-behaved, tedious or gimmicky pieces. On the one hand The movement of time by the Mexican Juan de Dios Magdaleno (*1984), which stood out for its fragmentary character, its beautiful orchestral sound and spherical sounds at the end, and Simulacrum by Henrik Denerin from Sweden (*1978), whose artificial and glassy sounds, transparency and fanned-out instrumentation made listeners sit up and take notice.

Overall, the first year of the Basel Composition Competition was a success. Provided that funding can be found, it is planned to hold the competition every two years. If it can help to increase the acceptance of the very latest music, it will definitely have achieved its goal.

www.baselcompetition.com