According to a press release, the Hindemith Foundation in Blonay/Vaud has for the first time awarded a "prize for the most convincing interpretation of a work by Paul Hindemith" as part of the German Music Competition. The prize is endowed with 3000 euros. It is combined with a concert performance in the Kuhhirtenturm, Hindemith's Frankfurt residence in the 1920s. The foundation is thus paying tribute to violinist Anne Luisa Kramb, who played Hindemith's Solo Sonata op. 31 No. 2 as part of the German Music Competition. According to Foundation President Andreas Eckhardt, the violinist interpreted the work with both expressive emphasis and playful ease and had a strong emotional impact on the audience. Anne Luisa Kramb is 22 years old and studies at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin with Antje Weithaas. In addition to the Hindemith Prize, she also won the German Music Competition Prize and the Bonn Rotary Music Prize as part of the competition in August 2022.

According to the canton's press release, Silvio Signer was presented with the award "in recognition and appreciation of his great services to the promotion of cabaret in the canton of Appenzell I.Rh.". He has been involved in the Appenzell cultural group for many years, including around 20 years as president. With his "extremely prudent and professional work, he is the linchpin of the cultural group".

As program director and designer of the A Cappella Days, Silvio Signer has also made a significant contribution to the great success of the music festival from the very beginning, i.e. from 2004, and thus to cultural life in the canton.

The Pro Innerrhoden Foundation aims to promote local culture. It maintains the cultural heritage in the canton and, as the sponsor of the Appenzell Museum, supports the preservation of the historical cultural heritage. It awards the Culture Prize and the Recognition Prize. The recognition prize is awarded in recognition of special achievements in local cultural activities.

Poems each have their own linguistic melody, which is also perceived as such. This can be described using statistical measures such as the so-called repetition measure, which is based on rhyme, meter and stanza structure. In their first study, the MPI team used the repetition measure to analyze recitations of 40 relatively unknown German poems.

They found that individual poems or stanzas have distinct text-controlled pitch and duration contours, just like sung songs and other pieces of music. They found that poems with higher repetition masses were more likely to be set to music than those with lower repetition masses. The more pronounced the speech melody, the higher the probability that a poem will be set to music.

Original article:
https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/institut/news/news-artikel/article/sprachmelodie-in-gedichten.html

In the Kirchner Museum, the mountains glow in shades of purple, violet and blue, whereas when you look out of the window, they are grass green and rock gray. But it is not for this reason that banners with the word "flunk" cover the streets. In Davos, the Festival Young Artists in Concert in fibbing, cheating, lying and truth-telling. This festival is truly different from most. It is not about a concentration of celebrities who arrive, deliver their program and leave again. Young musicians at the beginning of their careers are invited to Davos. And they are not here to "deliver", but to collect: Performance experience, new playing partners, unfamiliar repertoire, impressions. Festival director Marco Amherd thinks it's important that they can go on a trip, that they can visit each other's concerts, that they can talk to each other. In short: that they have a bit of time on their hands. (Perhaps as a positive echo of all the time that spa guests had to spend here a hundred years ago in a much more joyless way).

Amherd selects the participants carefully. Some have applied to him, others have caught his eye at a competition or on another occasion. He considers whether the concept suits them and whether they could get on with the others. By the time the young people arrive, they have practiced their voices, but they rehearse on site - with the chamber music partners they usually meet there. A moment of truth in a way. According to one participant, the festival gives them an enormous amount of trust, because although Marco Amherd listens to the dress rehearsal, they work out the interpretation among themselves.

This festival recipe solves any programming cramps. Amherd enjoys the freedom: "I usually program everything myself, first the overarching theme, then the individual concerts. Sometimes participants or existing ensembles make suggestions. But I'm often amazed at how uninnovative they are." The 34-year-old remedies this. With regard to the (broadly defined) concept of "fibbing", one evening, for example, revolves around works that were defamed as lies and banned by a totalitarian regime. The Piano Sonata No. 2 "From Old Notebooks" by Aleksandr Mosolow meets the Piano Trio in C major by Bohuslav Martinů and the Clarinet Sonata by Edison Denisow. One afternoon is dedicated to the kind of fibbing that conjures up the most fantastic worlds in children's books: Thierry Escaich's Scènes d'enfant au crépusculeFrancis Poulenc's oboe sonata and Histore de Babar are captured at the end by Thomas Adès' Catch. The Baroque evening is about "lying" authorship and the faked depiction of animals or instruments. On an evening of spooky legends, Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre in a chamber version also the Conte fantastique by André Caplet. He is very much in his place at the concert in the former sanatorium on the Schatzalp, as he suffered gas poisoning in the trenches during the First World War, from which his lungs never fully recovered.

 

The young musicians play the often difficult works with great skill, freshness and enthusiasm, which is transferred to the audience. (However, as with so many events at the moment, the rows are sparser than before Corona). It's always my colleagues who are the most enthusiastic. Perhaps one or two of them will be infected by the discovery virus.

On the baroque evening, I sit next to locals who tell each other what they have already heard this year. Regular Davos summer guests are also among the habitués. In addition to the regular concerts, the festival cultivates its audience with daily, free organ moments in St. Theodul Church, open singing in St. Paul's Church and small pop-up serenades at the train station. This year, there will even be a ballet lesson, as there will be dancing in the final concert. "If there are already two dancers here, everyone should be able to try out what it's like," says Marco Amherd. The annual festival hike, this time called the "Path of Truth", is also a thoroughly physical experience. On the steep climb after the coffee break, the truth about your own fitness really dawns on you. As musical refreshment, there are harp sounds right at the beginning in front of a postcard view, followed by a snack with a brass trio. Before lunch, Onna Stäheli, the leader of the open singers, has the hikers line up in a meadow and, after a short rehearsal, send a chorus through the valley. And at the end in the tiny church in Sertig-Dörfli, tired legs and an aired head are particularly receptive to extraordinary sounds: Maurice Ravel, Kaija Saariaho and Philippe Hersant are able to illuminate the surrounding mountain slopes in purple, violet and blue.

The paper entitled "The effects of music listening on somatic symptoms and stress markers in the everyday life of women with somatic complaints and depression", which was awarded the Thurgau Research Prize, was published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2021. It examines the extent to which listening to music in everyday life can alleviate physical complaints in patients, most of whom have been suffering from physical symptoms such as pain, exhaustion or nausea for several years.

The results of the study show that listening to music has an indirect effect on the body: Listening to music in everyday life has a stress-reducing effect, and this stress reduction entails an improvement in physical symptoms. The study was thus able to identify an important mechanism for the effect of listening to music.

More info: https://www.tg.ch/news.html/485/news/59346/l/de

Sometimes it entices with "Fuel", sometimes with "Night" or, as this year, with "Karma". Whatever motto the Aargau Youth Symphony Orchestra (JSAG) chooses for its tour programs, it always seems a little daring and promises something unusual. Under the artistic co-direction of conductor Hugo Bollschweiler and project manager Stefanie Braun, this orchestra with its 70 musicians aged between 16 and 26 is flying high. Both have set their sights high; in the recent past, both have made their mark with a clever, motivating program dramaturgy, which is also perceived abroad and which confirms the cultural canton of Aargau in the best possible way. Year after year, it is therefore a pleasure to see how much the young orchestra members grow in the classical-romantic concert repertoire as well as in newer and Aargau music.

But nothing comes from nothing. The JSAG and the Freiamt Youth Orchestra (JOF) under Anne-Cécile Gross are nurtured and cared for as part of a unique mediation and education project by Künstlerhaus Boswil, the "place of music", which is also the source of another renowned home-grown project: the Boswil Summer, initiated by Andreas Fleck. If you continue the circle from Boswil to Brugg, you inevitably end up with the Siggenthal Youth Orchestra (SJO) and its tireless director Marc Urech. Why is that important? Without Urech's encouragement, the six-piece klezmer band Otrava - some of whose members also play in the JSAG - would probably not exist. And in 2022, this connection will bear special fruit: the JSAG has entrusted Otrava with a world premiere - a concerto for klezmer band and orchestra.

Even for a clever ensemble like Otrava, which in its own words plays a "Balkan stew with a pinch of Pavarotti", this is no easy task. But they master it brilliantly and - framed by Franz Schubert's overture to the Magic harp and Igor Stravinsky's rarely performed Symphony in E flat major op. 1 - this special music can be heard in many shades. Mischa Tapernoux, composition/violin, Salome Etter, clarinet, Lukas Eugster, guitar, Romain Nussbaumer, trombone, Yves Ehrsam, percussion, and Caspar Streich, double bass, place themselves in the middle of the orchestra and lead it to the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, for whom klezmer was the musical expression of their longing for identity, for an emotional, spiritual and geographical home, their hope for "good karma". Lamentation, joy, ecstasy, dance and love mingle in exemplary fashion in A Glezele Vayn, Misirlou or in Geamparalele lui Mišaa Romanian dance in 7/8 time, which is based on the dance sequence short-short-long or 2-2-3. The music should be fast and ever faster, but above all virtuosic, according to the motto "more is more". This is exactly how it is played by the soloist sextet and the orchestra: The whipping rhythm is driven forward with exuberant playfulness which, thanks to Hugo Bollschweiler's careful direction, never gets out of control.

It's captivating and quickly gives rise to the thought: Couldn't this concert for klezmer band and orchestra become a trademark of the JSAG? However, the current members of Otrava are continuing their studies partly in Switzerland and partly abroad. Will they still have time to perform together? If not, who could succeed them? In any case, it would be a shame if this captivating work could no longer be heard apart from in Boswil, Lindau, Rheinfelden and Lenzburg, the stops on the Karma tour.

Another musical success story in the area is the Musikalische Begegnungen Lenzburg, MBL, which was founded in 1984. Whether at Lenzburg Castle, the Old Community Hall, the Alte Bleiche, the town church or the Kraftreaktor, this two-week festival focuses on a mix of orchestral concerts, chamber and vocal music, electronic music (with Ondes Martenot) as well as organ and brass concerts. Like the JSAG with "Karma", the MBL have an exciting motto: "Klangstrom - Stromklang". They were inspired by Städtische Werke, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year with the slogan "Experience a year full of energy". "Our festival," explain Andrea Hofstetter and Daniel Schaerer, who are the artistic directors, "aims to build a bridge from electrical energy from the socket to music." Each of the concerts therefore stands for a specific form of energy. The JSAG has an abundance of it, which is why it will also be playing at the opening on August 19 in Lenzburg and will certainly score points with the combination of emotion, passion and dynamism that is so typical of this ensemble.

The author attended the concert on August 7 in Boswil.
"Karma" can be heard again on August 19, 2022, 7.15 pm, at Lenzburg Castle:
https://www.kuenstlerhausboswil.ch/show-item/karma/

The aim of the measure is to promote projects aimed at raising awareness, networking, expanding knowledge and gaining expertise in relation to intangible cultural heritage. Two priorities have been defined for the years 2022 to 2024: Preservation and sustainability.

Projects in the area of preservation aim to ensure the continued existence of intangible cultural heritage, particularly through the dissemination and documentation of this heritage. This includes, for example, workshops in which craft skills are taught or educational projects that encourage young people to participate in traditional practices.

Projects with a focus on sustainability emphasize the contribution of living cultural heritage to sustainable development. This applies, for example, to the management of natural resources through traditional knowledge, the strengthening of social cohesion through folk festivals or the circular economy through craft techniques.

More info:
https://www.bak.admin.ch/bak/de/home/aktuelles/nsb-news.msg-id-89943.html

The centerpiece of the festival from September 9 to 11 is the Puppetry performance Oh
You fool! from Lutz Grossmann in the studio of Othmar Schoeck's birthplace in Brunnen. Read backwards, this title conceals Don Ranudothe protagonist of Schoeck's opera of the same name, the libretto of which was written by Armin Rüeger. Grossmann's ensemble approaches the man Othmar Schoeck in his play with artifacts and curiosities from the Künstlerhaus and music from the Schoeck-Rüeger operas.

Armin Rüeger (1886-1957) was much more than a pharmacist and lyricist. He drew, painted, designed posters and flyers, was committed to puppet theater and generally to the cultural scene in Eastern Switzerland in the first half of the 20th century. On the basis of previously unpublished material, the OSF is curating an exhibition together with the Historisches Museum Bischofszellwhich aims to remove him from the shadow of Othmar Schoeck. As the author of several festival plays and marionette pieces, Rüeger was able to give Schoeck's sprawling visual and sound fantasies a dramaturgical framework with his libretti, which made them adaptable for the stage in the first place.

In the Symposium Balzac on the opera stagewhich will take place at the Künstleratelier in cooperation with the Musicology Institute of the University of Zurich, Schoeck/Rüeger's Massimilla Doni in the context of other Balzac operas of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Inga Mai Groote, Erich Keller and Alex Ross, live from Los Angeles, discuss in the Podium Art and politics in the 20th century the historical and political context of Schoeck's work, a topic that will remain important for the OSF in the future.

Every year, the OSF presents a World premiere. The Mondrian Ensemble interprets beside
Dieter Ammanns Après le silence and Heard form a new work by Felix Nussbaumer, who has already presented a string quartet sketch at the OSF 2021 as part of Ammann's Podium futur composé. In contrast, Schoeck's song cycle will be performed at the same concert Gaselen. Due to the unusual instrumentation, it is rarely heard live. Advanced students of the Lucerne School of Music work on the cycle in a chamber music module until it is ready for concert performance.

Finally, in the former telephone booths at Brunnen station, travelers will be provided with a Installation by Mali Lazell welcomed: Ghosts | Falling upwards combines photos from OSF 2016 with a sound collage by Rolf Simmen.

Like last year, there will also be a Accompanying book to the festival appear.

According to the German Music Industry Association (BVMI), audio streaming remains the strongest format on the market, accounting for 73.3% of total sales after further growth (9.1%). This means that 80.2 percent of revenues from music sales in Germany are now generated digitally, with downloads only contributing 2.4 percent to the overall market following a further decline in sales.

Although CD sales in the physical sector continued to decline (-6.5%), the pace has slowed considerably compared to the same period last year (-16.4%). Meanwhile, the sales curve for vinyl records continues to point upwards (12.3%). With a market share of 6.2 percent, it remains the third strongest market segment, generating almost half as much revenue as CDs (12.8 percent). Overall, the physical business still accounts for just under a fifth of total sales (19.8%).

The Landis & Gyr Foundation's work grant is aimed at Swiss artists who are planning a specific project and gives them the opportunity to spend a period of time working. They are awarded a sum of CHF 30,000 each.

Li Tavor's artistic practice encompasses composition, installation and architecture. In the academic year 2021/22, Tavor completed the Master's degree in Electroacoustic Composition at the ZHdK. This major focuses on electronic compositions, works for instruments and electronics, sound installations, generative and interactive works, performative-improvisational works as well as works that use visual, scenic and other means.

These include the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ensemble Resonanz, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Jewish Chamber Orchestra. The programme supports orchestras and ensembles in implementing innovative working methods and programs as well as cultural education and diversity projects. The orchestras each receive up to 400,000 euros, with a total of 4.8 million euros available for the funding program from the federal cultural budget.

The following ensembles and orchestras have successfully applied for funding: Concerto Köln, Dresdner Philharmonie, Ensemble Resonanz, Freiburger Barockorchester, Jewish Chamber Orchestra, la festa musicale, Mahler Chamber Orchester, Orchester des Nationaltheaters Mannheim, lautten compagney Berlin, Philharmonisches Orchester Altenburg Gera, Philharmonisches Orchester Hagen, Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg, Saarländisches Staatsorchester, Stegreif Orchester, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen.

Franz Josef Jenni spent his entire life in Entlebuch. He was a letter carrier in Wiggen for 40 years, conductor of the Escholzmatt church band for 51 years and a member of the supervisory board of the Escholzmatt-Marbach loan fund for 50 years, as well as a virtuoso musician and leader of various bands, captain of an army band and clarinettist in the Langnau orchestra for decades. The father of two sons and ten daughters was also a lifelong member of the Conservative Party and worked as a small farmer.

Years after his death, some of his daughters gave the then conductor of the Escholzmatt church music ensemble, Hermann Jenny, a box of handwritten sheet music. After a brief inspection, he put the box in the attic with the intention of taking a closer look at its contents after his retirement. Then, three years ago, came the big surprise: Franz Josef Jenni left behind six sets of handwritten sheet music from around 1900 to 1922 with folk music, a total of 350 pieces for various instrumental combinations (clarinet in E flat/B flat, trumpet in B flat, horn in E flat/F/B flat, trombone in C and tuba in E flat as well as flute in C, violin, accordion and double bass). In addition, three equally handwritten albums with military music.

Hermann Jenny began to record this music digitally. Professional musicians have now recorded some of the folk music compositions; the Bürgermusik Luzern under the direction of Michael Bach has recorded the military music that captain-corporal Franz Josef Jenni wrote into the personal music booklet of every single musician in his battalion Füs Bat 41 in 1902. Journalist and author Beat Straubhaar wrote the biography based on almost two years of research The musical treasure from the attic.
 

Beat Straubhaar: The musical treasure from the attic. Biography of Franz Josef Jenni (1876-1959), 204 p., incl. 2 CDs with folk and military music, Fr. 49.00 + postage, Verlag Entlebucher Medienhaus, Schüpfheim 2022, ISBN 978-3-906832-27-2

Order and further information: 
https://jenni-musik.ch/
 

Due to the lockdowns in the reporting year, the number of performances fell by 70% compared to the 2018/19 season, the last season before the coronavirus pandemic. The number of audience members fell by 86%. Across Germany, 2,541,142 theater attendances were reported in the 2020/21 season.

The stages' digital offerings have been greatly expanded: In terms of the number of productions, digital formats account for almost 20 percent of all productions, compared to 10 percent in the previous season. Performance figures for digital offerings were not recorded in the current work statistics. The use of digital formats was also only recorded if tickets were sold or online registrations were made.

In Germany, the proportion of contemporary works has increased significantly. In addition to classics such as "The Magic Flute" and "Faust", the most frequently staged works include numerous very different contemporary works; the comedy "Extrawurst" about integration and structural racism is at the top of the list, followed by Ferdinand von Schirach's "Gott", a discourse drama about the legitimacy of euthanasia.

427 theaters from Germany, Austria and Switzerland reported their data to the editors of "Deutsche Bühne", who collected it and compiled it in performance lists, diagrams and tables with the most frequently performed works, productions and authors.

More info:
https://www.buehnenverein.de/de/presse/pressemeldungen.html?det=645

The initiator of the Neumz project is the American John Anderson, founder of the Odradek Records label, in long-term collaboration with the community of Benedictine nuns of the Notre-Dame de Fidélité Abbey of Jouques in Provence, France, where John Anderson's aunt lived. The community in Jouques has consisted of 45 sisters aged between 26 and 85 since 2017.

The recording project includes the entire Gregorian repertoire with thousands of different chants, which corresponds to a volume of more than 7000 CDs. Each chant is synchronized with the score in quadriquartas developed by Franco of Cologne (13th century music theorist), the Latin text and its translation into the reader's language.

The contents of the Psalter, Lectionary, Collectary, Antiphonary, Responsorial and Gradual are combined into a multimedia Liber Digitalis of the 21st century. The name Neumz is derived from the Latin Neuma: Signs representing one or more sounds in notation.

Website of the project: https://neumz.com/

The initiator of the Neumz project is the American John Anderson, founder of the Odradek Records label, in long-term collaboration with the community of Benedictine nuns of the Notre-Dame de Fidélité Abbey of Jouques in Provence, France, where John Anderson's aunt lived. The community in Jouques has consisted of 45 sisters aged between 26 and 85 since 2017.

The recording project includes the entire Gregorian repertoire with thousands of different chants, which corresponds to a volume of more than 7000 CDs. Each chant is synchronized with the score in quadriquartas developed by Franco of Cologne (13th century music theorist), the Latin text and its translation into the reader's language.

The contents of the Psalter, Lectionary, Collectary, Antiphonary, Responsorial and Gradual are combined into a multimedia Liber Digitalis of the 21st century. The name Neumz is derived from the Latin Neuma: Signs representing one or more sounds in notation.

Website of the project: https://neumz.com/