At the heart of the MIZ's offering is a specialist article that asks what social significance concert halls have and what buildings and concepts are needed to make culture accessible to broad sections of the population. The organizational and management structures on which concert halls are based will be examined, as well as the question of location, their programming and artistic orientation.

In addition, the MIZ website offers detailed information on the infrastructure of the German concert hall landscape, for example on sponsors, operating forms and management structures of the individual houses, on their content orientation and performance operations as well as on hall capacities and historical facts. The new service can be accessed here

Meanwhile, the German music academies have joined forces for a special concert series: Under the artistic direction of Sebastian Nordmann, artistic director of the Konzerthaus Berlin, the students developed site-specific productions for the Konzerthaus, the Musikinstrumenten-Museum and for the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin. Their aim is to show how to respond to changes in listening behavior and new performance practices - concert schedules and performed repertoire.
 

"His use of spiritual texts" combines "word and sound into a convincing unity that always focuses on people, reflects essential questions and is emotionally gripping", according to the citation. Wolfgang Rihm, who is celebrating his 65th birthday this year, will be presented with the award this year by Lord Mayor Richard Arnold as part of the European Church Music Festival (July 13 to August 6) in the Heilig-Kreuz-Münster Schwäbisch Gmünd.

The European Church Music Prize is endowed with 5000 euros. Since 1999, it has honored high-ranking performers and composers for groundbreaking achievements in the field of sacred music. Previous winners include the composers Petr Eben, Sofia Gubaidulina, Klaus Huber, Arvo Pärt, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Krzysztof Penderecki, Dieter Schnebel, Sir John Tavener and Hans Zender.

Other honorees include the conductors Frieder Bernius, Marcus Creed, Eric Ericson, Hans-Christoph Rademann and Helmuth Rilling, the organist Daniel Roth, the chamber singer Peter Schreier, the musicologist, conductor and composer Clytus Gottwald and the Thomanerchor Leipzig. This year marks the 19th time that the Schwäbisch Gmünd European Church Music Prize has been awarded.

The path to art is steep. You have to make an effort to get to the large concert hall of Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie concert hall. A curved wooden staircase leads up from the publicly accessible plaza. And if you sit higher up in the steep hall, you have many more steps to climb if you don't choose the easy way via the elevators. You can also simply follow the spherical lamps, which provide orientation like a strip of light. The fluorescent tubes that burn in the foyers around the hall are all directed towards the conductor's podium, explains Jan-Christoph Lindert from the Basel architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron during the morning press tour. The music is even staged in the foyer. Much has already been written about the acoustics of the large hall before a note has even been played. Chief acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota has achieved perfect sound insulation by placing the double-shell hall on steel springs and thus decoupling it from the building. No ship's siren penetrates inside, no trumpet sound outside. Inside the hall, 10,000 gypsum fiber boards were installed, the different millings of which are intended to finely distribute the sound waves. The so-called white skin is actually gray and also sets a strong visual accent. Maximum material density meets maximum dispersion - like a jet of water splashing against a wall and forming a mist of droplets, explains Lindert. And promises that this creates the same auditory impression in all 2100 seats. 

The mood among the invited premiere guests is relaxed. People laugh and marvel, look around and touch the strange structures on the walls. There is no anger when the ceremony is postponed by half an hour. Anyone who has waited six years for the opening of the Elbphilharmonie can no longer be upset by thirty minutes. You don't look up at the stage, you look down. Even the visitors in the stalls are at eye level with the artists. Every seat can be reached from any other. No audience member sits more than thirty meters away from the conductor. The image of a campfire around which people gather, used by artistic director Christoph Lieben-Seuter, fits well with the feeling in the hall. Federal President Joachim Gauck speaks appropriately of a sense of community that does not, however, reveal individuality. The individual spectator areas vary in size. They are arranged like vines on a slope. This is why this form of hall design, which can also be experienced in a similar way in the Berlin Philharmonie, is called the vineyard principle. The masses are divided into small groups. There is no sense of hierarchy. Ingenious architecture! But do the acoustics live up to the expectations? The first notes make you sit up and take notice. Conductor Thomas Hengelbrock begins the ceremony with Ludwig van Beethoven's overture to The creatures of Prometheus. The very first chord strikes jump out at the listener. The timpanist of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra hits the drumheads with wooden mallets. The sound is direct and clear. Music as a wake-up call! You wouldn't be able to doze off in the straight, hard upholstered seats anyway. The energy that immediately spreads from the stage into the hall is enormous. In the seat to the left behind the orchestra, directly in front of the organ, the strings and woodwinds sound as vivid as if you were hearing them from the front. You can follow every single voice like in no other concert hall - and observe every detail. Chamber music precision instead of billowing pathos. The first impression is overwhelming. Only the background noise of the organ impairs the listening pleasure in the adjacent seats that evening.

Photo: Michael Zapf

Intermission applause at the opening concert on January 11

During the interval, there is a big crowd in front of the six bars. But the many staircase foyers and passageways also offer places where you can enjoy the spectacular view through the glass walls in peace and quiet. Or you can go right out onto the loggias, where you can hear the noise of the city. The stiff breeze ruffles your hair. The people of Hamburg don't want to be reminded of the cost explosion of the 789 million euro building. "It's all forgotten," says one lady, sipping her champagne glass. Lord Mayor Olaf Scholz, who untied the Gordian knot of the construction freeze with new contracts in 2013, only briefly touched on the planning mistakes of the past at the press conference and appeared Hanseatically sober in the hour of triumph. For the actual celebratory concert, Thomas Hengelbrock subjected the Elbphilharmonie to a crash test, explored the extremes of the dynamics and distributed the artists around the hall. The warm, transparent acoustics can also be admired here when Philippe Jaroussky fills the entire hall with his delicate countertenor, accompanied only by a harp. With the extremely loud works such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Photoptosiswhere the organ (Iveta Apkalna) also contributes additional sound, the harshness increases. The rather dry hall forgives nothing. And you have to be extremely careful not to let the percussion and brass become too massive. The other side of the coin is even more noticeable after the interval. In Richard Wagner's Parsifal-The winds and strings are often not congruent in the unison prelude. A millisecond's delay is enough - and the cogs no longer mesh. This is where the otherwise very precise and agile orchestra weakens. At the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's routine-looking commissioned composition Reminiscence. Triptych and saying in memoriam Hans Henny Jahnn Pavol Breslik's voice, heard from behind, does not have the same intensity as the instrumental sounds. Even in the finale of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Ode to joy the voices of Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (soprano), Wiebke Lehmkuhl (alto), Pavol Breslik (tenor) and Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone) get a little lost in space. The two choirs from NDR and BR (rehearsed by Philipp Ahmann), on the other hand, sound quite present at the back of the orchestra. Other highly praised halls such as the KKL in Lucerne, built in the classic shoebox shape, have nothing to hide from these extremely transparent acoustics. They have other strengths, such as a slightly longer reverberation that does not make the orchestral sound seem as naked as it does in the Elbphilharmonie. In Lucerne, the registers blend better. However, with the ceiling reflector, the differently treated white wall and the exposed location on the water, there are certainly similarities between the two outstanding concert halls. In the Elbphilharmonie, Thomas Hengelbrock fires up his NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra one last time with his great charisma. The rest is joy and jubilation. Hamburg has every right to be proud of the city's new landmark.

Two young orchestras in eastern Switzerland are joining forces and are planning a joint project with Shchedrin's Carmen Suitewhich is also open to other interested amateur players. That is why the Sankt Gallen Chamber Orchestra and the Graubünden Young Orchestra are inviting young, young-at-heart and good string players to take part in four concerts in mid-May 2017 in St. Gallen (Lokremise), Chur and Altstätten. An unknown, inspiring version of the famous Carmen Suite (with 5 percussionists led by Eckart Fritz from Chur and a string orchestra) is developed together with the regular players in rehearsals in Chur and St. Gallen, and then put together with direction, stage, actors (led by Annette Démarais from St. Gallen, Dimitri Schule), percussion and lots of energy. The conductor of this production is the Flims musician and cellist Mathias Kleiböhmer

We are looking for interested amateur musicians to join our string orchestra. Rehearsals will start in January, the concerts are on May 12, 13, 14 and 19, 2017.

In an online survey conducted in August and September 2016, the City of Aarau's cultural office asked Aarau's cultural practitioners about the current situation of their studio, rehearsal and club spaces. 94 percent of the respondents took part.

The survey shows that many cultural professionals are currently looking for suitable rehearsal, studio or club rooms in Aarau and that the demand for rooms will increase over the next few years. They are looking for rooms up to 50 square meters with favorable rental conditions in the Aarau region. Many cultural professionals are willing to use rooms in interim use for a certain, fixed period of time.

The city itself cannot offer its own properties. In order to improve the situation for cultural professionals, a task force is to be set up. This is intended to raise awareness of the issue in the city and among the general public, maintain an exchange with the city's urban planning department and seek contact with private property managers. In particular, the mediation of space search, space offer and space sharing should be addressed.

This form of infrastructural support was already set out in the city's cultural concept from December 2014. Those responsible are hoping for unbureaucratic, clear and quicker access to spaces for public and private (cultural) events by setting up a space database.
 

The aim of the "Sing with us!" project is to have entire school classes from first to fifth grade perform Christmas carols from all over the world in a children's concert, accompanied by a small, young, professional orchestra with strings, wind instruments and harp. The initiator and director is Lorenz Indermühle, who lives in the Thun area and has experience with children's choirs and orchestras and whose aim is to give all the children taking part a deep, lasting experience of music. Our youngest grandson, aged 9, sang along to the concert, which we were able to attend in the large, completely full Neumünster church in Zurich. Over thirty teachers from the canton of Zurich took advantage of this offer and have been rehearsing diligently with their classes since the summer vacations, supported by a CD with the excellent, snappy orchestral arrangements.

The last rehearsal in the school building took place early on Advent Sunday morning. Afterwards, a single full rehearsal with orchestra in the Neumünster had to suffice; the concert began at eleven o'clock and turned out excellently with almost four hundred children singing by heart and with confidence. And there were rumba rhythms, 5/8 bars etc. to master.

From the program: Ninõ Lindo from Venezuela, La marche des Rois from France, Dormi, dormi, bel bambin from Italy, Jingle Bells from America, Da pacem, Domine by Melchior Franck, Every year again from Germany etc. with the crowning finale, the beginning of the first cantata of the Christmas Oratorio, combined with the Luther song From heaven high, here I come.

One could argue that only teachers who sing a lot with their classes anyway came forward. But the effect is contagious, at least in the school building, and the project is spreading to many cantons and even to the German neighborhood. There was even a concert in Granada! The project is self-supporting, financed by moderate ticket prices that are affordable for whole families. And it has an integrating effect on many children with a migration background.

According to the Government Council's decision, a total of 300 new study places are available for the Department of Music, Theater and Other Arts, and 85 study places for the Department of Design, including Conservation-Restoration.

The HKB offers Bachelor's degree courses in classical music, jazz, music and media art as well as music and movement (rhythmics), and Master's degree courses in music performance, specialized music performance, pedagogy and composition/theory. Since 2016, a PreCollege has also been preparing students for a Bachelor's degree in music. The music program is complemented by an opera studio in the context of regular university education.

The 2017 Suisse Diagonales Jazz Festival brings together 25 jazz clubs, which are organizing sixty concerts with ten promising young jazz groups from 14 January to 19 February 2017. The bands were chosen for their artistic potential and the originality of their music.

The bands come from all parts of Switzerland and are called Esche, Gauthier Toux Trio, Mantocliff, Marena Whitcher's Shady Midnight Orchestra, Marie Kruttli Trio, Maurus Twerenbold Non Harmonic Quartet, Nojakîn, Pauline Ganty Quartet, Raphael Walser's GangArt and TreMeandy.

Suisse Diagonales Jazz 2017 starts on January 14, 2017 in Bern with a matchmaking event in the afternoon for professionals in the jazz scene and an opening event in the evening, bringing together jazz players from all over Switzerland.

Elina Duni will perform her solo project "Aufbrechen", in which she sings about the theme of "breaking up" in nine different languages. Matthieu Michel, Colin Vallon, Flo Götte and Domi Chansorn will then play in a quartet. The concerts start at 8 pm in the gymnasium at the PROGR in Bern.

The study examines the state of gender equality in the cultural and media sector over a period of more than twenty years. It looks at the training situation, the presence of women in management positions in cultural institutions, the participation of women in the promotion of individual artists and much more over a period of 20 years.

A key finding of the study is that, despite the greater presence of women in some areas, there is no gender equality. This applies equally to cultural associations. 

According to Olaf Zimmermann, Managing Director of the German Cultural Council, the gender pay gap for freelance female artists in the cultural sector is "an alarming 24%". In response to the results of the study, the German Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, has set up a round table on gender equality to discuss possible solutions.

Download the study:
https://www.kulturrat.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Frauen-in-Kultur-und-Medien.pdf

According to statistics from the classical music platform Bachtrack, Beethoven's 5th Symphony is the most-performed work in general, with 145 performances in 2016. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major was also played in the top 10, landing in third place - higher than ever before, while his Fantasy Overture "Romeo and Juliet" is in its fifth year on the rise, making it to 22nd place.

This year, too, anniversaries are influencing the ranking of composers; Dutilleux, Reger, Ginastera and Satie have all moved up the ranks and the same applies to Kurtág, who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2016.

As for the most active artist, Valery Gergiev was on the podium almost every other day - 143 concerts and performances were recorded by Bachtrack in 2016. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra maintained its status as the most active orchestra and the French brothers Renaud and Gautier Capuçon both ranked second among the busiest violinists and cellists with almost the same number of solo performances (50 and 49 respectively).

There are hardly any women in the list of the most active artists, with the exception of the female choreographers, who have left a clearer mark than the female composers: however, there are only 3 female choreographers in the list of the 30 most active choreographers.

Bachtracks database represents the world of classical music with over 32,000 registered events for 2016 all over the world. The platform claims to be the largest platform for classical music worldwide.
 

Well over a thousand instruments from the important and internationally acclaimed Burri Collection have moved to Kramgasse. A small selection of them - supplemented by other objects - can be seen in the exhibition, which was conceived by musicologist Adrian v. Steiger, head of the collection. Scenographer Martin Birrer is responsible for the design.

Visitors can play twenty instruments themselves, from the Viking lute to the taragot, and they can also listen to the groups of instruments on display in videos on iPads. Six musical ensembles are presented, from "Turkish music", brass music from around 1800, to the instruments for Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique and cyclist music.

After the open day on January 21, the exhibition will be open from Wednesday to Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm. Guided tours and workshops are also available to visit the display collection in the basement, where the instruments and their history can be experienced vividly and sonically.

In addition to providing information, the collection is committed to preserving, expanding and researching this important collection. It also makes restored instruments available to specialists for historical performance practice projects, for example to the Bern University of the Arts Orchestra for a workshop performance of Stravinsky's "Sacre du printemps" in February 2017.

More info: sounding-collection.ch

At the end of the school year at a general education school in Rhineland-Palatinate, the best pupils are awarded the prize. In addition to good grades, the decisive factor is a special musical commitment in school (e.g. school orchestra, music clubs, etc.) and extracurricular activities (music club, choir, competition, etc.) that goes beyond regular lessons.

The music conference of the respective school decides who should receive the prize. The subject teachers are guided by the individual progress, the absolute and relative level of knowledge of the pupils and the objectives of the lessons. The winners receive a certificate and a voucher worth 15 euros, which can be redeemed in the online store of a music publisher.

More info: www.lmr-rp.de

The women's orchestra is on an international tour and will perform at the closing evening of the World Economic Forum in Davos. After the Youth Orchestra of Caracas from Venezuela and the Bochabela String Orchestra from South Africa, the Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zürich is now inviting the third youth orchestra from special regions of the world.

More than thirty young Afghan women between the ages of 14 and 20 make music together under the most difficult conditions in this war-torn country. The Afghan Women's Orchestra is the first female ensemble in the history of Afghanistan. Before the war, women were present in public life, rode bicycles and largely enjoyed the same rights as men in education and employment.

At the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), founded by Ahmad Sarmast, from which the orchestra emerged, music is a response to war and destruction, a way into the future of hundreds of Afghan children, regardless of their gender, ethnic or religious affiliation or socio-economic circumstances.

By making music together, girls and boys learn to treat each other with respect and break down gender-specific barriers. According to the Tonhalle Society's press release, families queue up every year to enrol their children in ANIM. Music can make a decisive contribution to building a peaceful civil society in this torn nation.

Thanks to the new cultural promotion strategy, the Cantonal Council is to be involved in the direction of cultural policy on a more regular basis and as part of an overall review. In addition, regional cooperation between the municipalities and with the canton in the cultural promotion platforms (Südkultur, Rheintaler Kulturstiftung, Kultur Toggenburg, Thurkultur and ZürichseeLinth) will be supported by law. The municipalities will also be legally responsible for the promotion of cultural activities and monuments of local importance, although the extent of their promotional activities will remain their responsibility.

In the consultation carried out in summer 2016, the vast majority of the 55 participants (political parties, municipalities, church and cultural institutions, etc.) judged both draft laws to be necessary, up-to-date and sensible. In terms of cultural promotion, the current practice is codified and thus legitimized for the benefit of cultural institutions and creative artists.

The government will forward the cultural legislation to the Cantonal Council in the February 2017 session. Parliamentary deliberations are planned for the April and June 2017 sessions.

In mid-November, the government council of Appenzell Ausserrhoden dealt with the third tranche of funding applications for contributions from the cultural fund. On the recommendation of the Cultural Council, it awarded support to four projects. These include two music projects: On the one hand, the various activities for the 50th anniversary of the Schötze-Chörli Stein AR next spring will be supported. In addition to the publication of a CD, the centerpiece of the anniversary will be twelve events at the Appenzell Folklore Museum in Stein, which will bring the history of the Schötze-Chörli to life in the form of a musical journey.

Secondly, it supports the innovative audio expo organized by the "Klang Moor Schopfe" association in the Gaiser Hochmoor. Eight agricultural barns will be used for audio installations by invited artists for ten days at the beginning of September 2017. An additional supporting program with performances and concerts will transform the Schützenhaus into a meeting place.

A third grant went to the exhibition celebrating the 25th anniversary of IG Halle in Rapperswil, in which two installations by Thomas Stricker form the centerpiece. Finally, a contribution was also granted for the publication of the 2016 cultural concept. The Government Council also took note of the decisions that the Department of Education and Culture made on its own authority in the second half of the year. A total of 64 applications were processed, of which 47 projects were granted support totaling CHF 88,900.