The monophonic Mass and Vespers chants for the feast days of the church year, which Manfred Barbarini Lupus composed for four voices on behalf of the monastery of St. Gallen from 1561-1563, may seem backward for their time, but they document an innovation in local music history. The composer from Correggio was called to the abbey specifically to introduce polyphony with this a cappella music. In the preface to Codex 443 from 1561, it is reported that the monks, who were used to singing in unison, resisted the suddenly prescribed polyphony.

After monastic life in the early 15th century had to be limited to two monks and the culture previously praised in the monastery of St. Gallen had died out, so to speak, Abbot Diethelm Blarer von Wartensee endeavored to revive it from 1530-1564 in the wake of the Counter-Reformation. The Barbarini Codices (542 and 543) in the Abbey Library are splendidly illustrated parchment manuscripts that contain four-part music in hufnagel and mensural notation in a choirbook arrangement (four parts on a double page each). Although book and music printing had already been invented in the 15th century and part books for each singer would have been a relief for the whole schola instead of a folio folded out on a lectern, great importance was attached to representation.

After Therese Bruggiser-Lanker in her dissertation Music and liturgy in the monastery of St. Gall in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance 2004 to the 204 compositions in the Barbarini Codices a co-production by the ensemble Ordo Virtutum under the direction of Stefan Johannes Morent with SWR 2, SRF 2 Kultur and the Abbey Library of St. Gall now makes it possible to hear a festive mass and vespers movements for St. Gall's Day, a hymn in honour of St. Othmar and a sequence by Notker I in exemplary quality.

The recording fulfills historically oriented ideas with eight male voices and interludes, played by Roland Götz on the replica of a canopy organ from 1559 by Johannes Rohlf.

The new release from Musiques suisses is recommended as wondrous music not only at Easter time.

Manfred Barbarini Lupus: Cantus coagulatus - four-part compositions for Mass and Office for the Monastery of St. Gall (around 1560). Musiques suisses MGB CD 6286

The key passage is found in the middle of the opera. In the supernatural, spectacular third act, the last in a series of silent ghosts of past kings, the army commander Banco appears. Killed by him and never king himself, he holds up the mirror of power to Macbeth with a grin: Banco sees in him not only himself, but the extension of himself into the future; the continuation of his power in his descendants. The glass does not reflect the outer body, but refers to the ruling body, which exists independently of physical presence. If Macbeth were to look in the mirror, he would remain blind: the childless murderer would see himself without a future, his deeds would be condemned to transience, his power to destruction.

Inside view and outside view
In Banco's mirror, the course of the plot is also reversed, with the build-up of power turning into a decline in power. But the opera is also characterized by the view into the mirror, because the central question is: what is visible on the outside, what remains an inner view, what is "real", what is "delusion". This refers not only to sounds - such as the bell that seems to incite Macbeth to commit murder, or the voices of the witches and ghosts - but also to visibility: Who actually sees them, the ghosts of the murdered, the blood on the hands of the murderers and, last but not least, the first protagonists of the opera, the witches:

"Who are you? From this world
or other spheres?
I am forbidden to call you women
your dirty beard."

These words by Banco already make it clear at the beginning that the power of the witches also lies in their intersexuality, which emphasizes their otherworldliness. Lady Macbeth also stands between the sexes, whose thirst for power makes her look contemptuously at her initially hesitant husband and his feelings of guilt. And this role is also reversed in Banco's mirror: after looking into the future, Macbeth is unscrupulously confident of victory and the Lady perishes from her feelings of guilt in a sleepwalking delusion. As Freud has already described in Shakespeare, the couple appears as a complementary unit with flexible gender role attributions.

The notebooks are open. The coffee pot moves from table to table. The deadline for the first Heidelberg Spring festival journal is four hours away. "Now the chit-chat of the last few days is over," says Eleonore Büning, music editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), and has a review projected onto the screen in the Robert Schumann Room of the Stadthalle. The ten-day Academy of Music Journalism under her direction is only taking place for the second time this year. The eight places are awarded to young music journalists who have already published and are actively involved in music. This year's participants include two singers and a cellist, an organist and Anna Lang, who plays six different instruments. Thilo Braun studies music journalism in Dortmund and works as a freelancer for cultural radio station WDR3. His review of a concert by violinist Tianwa Yang with pianist Nicholas Rimmer the previous evening is collectively edited. It's all about a good introduction, the right balance ("You mustn't over-spice the texts!"), the resolution of relative clauses and, time and again, the right, precise wording. "When I think of 'slipping away', I think of a slimy affair," Büning states dryly and looks for alternatives together with the academy fellows. They work on the sentence for ten minutes. "Delicate lilting tones from Yang's violin contrasted with the rumble of the afterbeats in the piano" is the final version, which can be read in the festival journal the next day.

Plea for the profession
"Today, every newspaper finds greater distribution through music critics," wrote Georg Kreisler in the 1960s. And defined the job description in his wicked song: "One of my duties as a music critic is to destroy beauty." Today, music criticism is marginalized in newspapers. The texts are becoming shorter and less frequent. In editorial conferences, people speak disparagingly of review graveyards and special interest texts, which nobody reads anyway because of the subject matter and technical vocabulary. The fact is that never before has so much classical music been heard in concert halls, festivals and opera houses as at present. According to a study by the Society for Consumer Research, classical events (concerts, operas, operettas) already had more visitors than pop concerts and musicals in Germany in 2011. So what is in crisis is not classical music, but music journalism, according to the Heidelberg Spring program book. "For me, good music criticism is the best way of communicating music," says Artistic Director Thorsten Schmidt. "Music critics are guides for the audience. Writing about music helps people talk about it." That's why he founded the Academy of Music Journalism in 2015. And in Eleonore Büning (64), he has recruited perhaps the most important music critic in Germany. She also experienced the decline in reporting on classical music at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Until 2004 there were still four music editors, but since 2012 she has been the only person responsible for classical music. "Content is geared towards quotas, chatter replaces competence, advertising replaces discourse," she writes in the editorial of the Akademiejournal. The economic pressure on newspapers is high due to the migration of the advertising business to the Internet, a process she sees as "unstoppable and irreversible". At the Music Journalism Academy, Büning wants to prepare the participants for the future. Particular attention is paid to online journalism. Storyboards are created for longer texts that also incorporate audio samples. Your own website www.musik-journalismus.com last year's two scholarship holders, Christopher Warmuth and Malte Hemmerich, have given the building a new tile design.

In general, the eight young music journalists don't fit the cliché of the dispassionate critic caricatured by Georg Kreisler ("I have no idea what music is, because I'm a pharmacist for a living. But I know very well what criticism is: the worse it is, the happier people are"). There are no oddball classical music nerds at the Music Journalism Academy, but communicative digital natives whose enthusiasm for music can be felt at every moment. They listen with interest and ask questions when Swiss music journalist Max Nyffeler (born in 1941) talks about his experiences and the difficult economic conditions. "On the radio in particular, there has been an extreme decline in broadcasting slots for reports dealing with classical and, above all, contemporary music in recent years. Fees have been halved or in some cases quartered. And things are no better at the newspapers." However, young music journalists like Anna Lang (23) from Karlsruhe are not deterred by this. They want to cover a wide range of topics and serve both radio and print. They can't get rich with music journalism - the scholarship holders are aware of that. But they are passionate about what they do. Despite all the objections, Max Nyffeler also makes a plea for the profession at the end of his statement: "Opening people's ears, teaching them to understand and enabling communication is the most important task of the music critic."

www.musik-journalismus.com

Thanks to the key control by means of motors, the tone holes can be ideally positioned when building the instrument, which the Bernese have christened "Clex". This leads to a significant increase in sound quality while at the same time improving intonation playability. In this way, acoustic and technical compromise solutions disappear.

The changeover to the new instrument is easy for musicians, as the traditional fingerings can be retained. However, the possibilities of electronic control also allow new multimedia applications, which should mean considerable added value for both performers and composers when using the contrabass clarinet.

Clex will be presented to the public on June 5, 2016 at 7 pm following a workshop in a concert at the Stadtcasino Basel with the Basel Sinfonietta. Ernesto Molinari will play the world premiere of two very different concertos by Michael Pelzel and Jorge Sánchez-Chiong. There will be an introductory talk at 6.15 pm.

The aim of the pupils is usually to play in a band, give concerts and even write their own songs, writes the city of Lucerne. In order to give them the opportunity to showcase their talent in front of an audience under professional conditions, the first Dr. Git was created around twelve years ago by drum and electric guitar teachers.

The name does not refer to a doctor of guitar, but rather is made up of the abbreviations for drums and guitar. This year, ten bands with over 50 participants will perform in changing line-ups. The Dr. Git bands will be followed by two other formations that regularly rehearse and play together.

A professional attitude is required from the children and young people, as the composition of the bands changes after each piece. With over 50 participants, this is a logistically and organizationally demanding task. In preparation for the concert, the music students and their teachers work on the pieces, which are practiced together in two rehearsals.

Info:
Saturday, June 4, 2016, 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.), Treibhaus, Spelteriniweg 4, 6005 Lucerne

As of March 1, 2016, salaries will be increased by 2.3 percent, but at least by 75 euros, for state-owned theaters and orchestras and by 2.4 percent for municipal theaters and orchestras.

The agreement corresponds to the wage increases in the public sector. This wage agreement applies to around 24,000 artistic employees of theaters and orchestras, primarily actors, singers, dancers and musicians, but also dramaturges, stage managers and stage technicians with predominantly artistic tasks.

The artists' unions GDBA (Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger), the VdO (Vereinigung deutscher Opernchöre und Bühnentänzer) and the DOV (Deutsche Orchestervereinigung) were involved in the negotiations

In 2011, there were over 18,000 musicians and almost 22,000 performing artists in Germany who were subject to social insurance contributions. In 2014, around 51,000 musicians and over 24,000 actors and dancers were registered with the artists' social insurance fund, which is open to self-employed people with an annual income of 3,900 euros or more.

Net income is 40 percent below 10,000 euros per year. The precarious income situation is also due to the fact that 70% of musicians, dancers and actors have to provide unpaid services. A good 80 percent of those surveyed feel that their employment situation is insecure. Deficits in the working environment such as unheated rooms, unsuitable dance floors or poor accommodation are a problem for half of the artists. Almost as many state that protective regulations such as the Working Hours Act are sometimes not complied with. A third have experienced breaches of contract, abuse of power and arbitrariness. A lack of co-determination at work was reported by 25 percent, bullying by 17 percent and sexual harassment by 5 percent.

2,635 working people took part in the online survey. In addition, detailed interviews were conducted with 22 artists, event organizers, agents, politicians and representatives of educational institutions and associations. The survey is not representative, but allows "qualified insights into the working conditions of artists".

Link to the study: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_study_hbs_319.pdf

The St. Gallen Cultural Promotion Act from 1995 no longer meets the requirements and circumstances of today's cultural promotion, writes the canton, and a complete revision is therefore overdue. At the same time, there is no legal basis for the preservation and transmission of the cultural heritage in its entirety, in particular movable cultural assets such as the manuscripts and archives of the Abbey Library or the Abbey Archives, which are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Abbey District of St.Gallen.

At the same time, the division of tasks between the canton and municipalities in the preservation of historical monuments, which the Cantonal Council demanded with the 2013 relief program, requires changes at the legislative level. The new Cultural Promotion Act and the new Cultural Heritage Act with their clear definitions and objectives also provide legal certainty for all parties involved.

The work on the new cultural laws was triggered in particular by the Cantonal Council's mandates on the division of tasks and prioritization of cultural promotion. The main thrusts of the new laws were discussed in the cantonal cultural conferences in 2014 and 2015. The draft of the new Culture Promotion Act "takes into account the heterogeneity of the canton, focuses on strong cultural regions and follows the principle of subsidiarity".

The consultation documents are available electronically on the canton's website:
http://www.sg.ch/home/staat___recht/staat/Kantonale_Vernehmlassungen.html

According to the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts) press release, the direct costs for research amounted to CHF 10.6 million in 2015, of which CHF 3.12 million were acquired funds. Important donors are the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF, the EU and various foundations. Since March of this year, the Institute for Art Education at ZHdK has also been involved in the Horizon 2020 project "Traces" (Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts), a project funded by the EU with 2.3 million euros and the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation with 423,000 francs.

The newly presented Creative Industries Report Switzerland 2016 assumes that over 450,000 people work in the creative economy in Switzerland, half of whom are employed in the creative industries, while the other half pursue a creative profession outside of the creative industries. The concept of creative economies derived in conclusion stands for a new understanding of the creative industries to date, which focuses more strongly on the practices and processes of the players.

Source of supply for the creative industries report:
www.creativeeconomies.com/reports/order
 

The cantonal government is honoring the dancer and choreographer Tabea Martin from Oberwil, who was born in 1978, with the dance prize. Tabea Martin has had a remarkable international career. She works for the independent scene and at municipal theaters. According to the canton's press release, her projects are highly professional and impress with their humor, intelligence and great choreographic skills.

The 40-year-old musician Lisette Spinnler from Liestal, a successful, internationally recognized jazz singer with roots in Basel, is being awarded the music category prize. The cultural critic Peter Rüedi describes her as a "real singing miracle on the Swiss jazz scene". Her trademarks are her scat and her fantasy languages.

The Music Prize goes to the choirmaster Abélia Nordmann, born in 1988. The music teacher grew up in Germany and France and completed her Specialized Master's degree in 2013. Today, she conducts choirs, ensembles and projects in the Basel region and in Switzerland's neighboring countries. She is the conductor of the contrapunkt chor Muttenz, the professional ensemble for early and contemporary music novantik project basel, the bâlcanto choir, the project choir ensemble liberté, the children's and youth choir Lörrach and the cross-border ensemble Choeur3.

The Winterthur Neighborhood Development Office manages and rents out 41 music practice rooms in the city of Winterthur. In December 2014, the Grand Municipal Council cut the department's global credit for 2015 by twenty percent. To help implement this decision, the Neighborhood Development Office decided to increase the rents for the music practice rooms.

The announcement triggered a protest from the musicians. The city had to acknowledge that it had acted incorrectly in some respects and decided last November to forego the planned rent increase. At the same time, it announced its intention to adjust the contracts and prices.

According to its own announcement, the city held an information event yesterday evening to explain to the tenants of the music practice rooms how this adjustment is to take place. The contracts currently available in two versions will be presented to the tenants in a standardized form for voluntary signature.

The prices will be adjusted to the quality of the rooms on the basis of a catalog of criteria and thus made fairer. Overall, there will be no significant price increase. The new contracts will apply from September 2016.
 

In studies funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the FIM has now analyzed almost 50 singers, including many who perform regularly at opera houses such as La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Bayreuth Festival and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.

The studies were primarily carried out using dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). For the implementation and optimization of imaging, there is close cooperation with the Department of Medical Physics at the Department of Radiology at the University Medical Center Freiburg and the Department of Neuroradiology at the University Medical Center Freiburg.

The FIM is headed by Claudia Spahn and Bernhard Richter. Matthias Echternach, senior physician at the Institute of Musicians' Medicine, has set himself the goal, together with Richter, of scientifically clarifying the question of how the voice develops in high-performance singers.
 

The European Youth Choir Festival (EJCF), which emerged from an ideas competition organized by the Christoph Merian Foundation in 1992, took place in Basel for the tenth time. Co-founder Beat Raaflaub looks back: "Despite all the changes since the first edition, the core idea has been preserved: the peaceful coexistence of very good youth choirs from Europe and overseas without a competitive character. We conceived the EJCF as a festival of encounters." So no elitism, but an experience full of joie de vivre and the joy of singing.

The choirs from the Bäumlihof, Leonhard, Münsterplatz, Liestal, Münchenstein, Muttenz and Oberwil grammar schools took turns to sing a cappella or with subtle instrumental accompaniment at various locations in Basel. It was amazing how the high school students were able to concentrate in the hustle and bustle of the city. The eleven singers from the Leonhard-Schulhaus managed the songs formidably under the baton of their singing director. Some of them hummed their pulses, while two particularly talented singers performed solos. Children sat on the floor in front of the youngsters and listened spellbound, older passers-by stopped and swayed to the rhythm. The large choirs from Liestal and Muttenz secondary schools were also very popular. With the indestructible Zogä am Bogä they captured the hearts of the audience, humming along was compulsory.

Own and foreign folk songs
There was no sign of musical fatigue, of "no desire to sing"; the standard of the 18 participating choirs from all over Europe was very high, as the opening concert showed. Here, the participating choirs met on a musical level after their preparation in their home countries, in keeping with the aim of the festival. Each choir had spent the morning learning a folk song from a partner choir from their own culture, and the songs were presented to the audience together in the Casino Hall in the evening.

The performances were colorful, the atmosphere in the packed hall was cheerful and lively, and there was a lot to discover. The idea of meeting foreign cultures through singing bore fruit and led to constant smiles. For example, there was the program of the phenomenal youth choir Tutarchela from Georgia. In their colorful traditional costumes, they sang folk songs from their homeland, first slowly, polyphonically and in perfect harmony, followed by a fast-paced part, accompanied by dancing. The men's choir Zero8ʼs Youth Choir from Sweden, which specializes in barbershop singing, was then introduced to Georgian folk music, with one of the young men dancing with a Georgian girl to the delight of the audience.

Swiss formations were also present, such as the two boys' choirs from Basel and Solothurn. The Cor Infantil Amics de la Unió from Spain was arousing great enthusiasm: Singing, sounds and movements with arms and legs were performed with virtuoso perfection, rhythmically tricky due to syncopation and changing registers. An inspiring evening!

The young talents from all regions of Switzerland qualified for the final at the Entradas in March. As the Swiss Youth Music Competition Foundation (SJMW) announced yesterday, a total of 370 prizes were awarded (solo: 241 prizes, chamber music: 129 prizes), including 46 first prizes with distinction and 118 first prizes. A further 154 young talents received a second prize and 25 a third prize.

Over 60 musicians were particularly pleased to receive a special prize. The results are available on the Website of the competition is now available.

The event came to a festive end with the award ceremony and the prizewinners' concert in the Stadthaussaal Winterthur on Sunday, May 8. The
The concert was recorded by Swiss radio SRF 2 Kultur and will be broadcast at a later date.

www.sjmw.ch

According to SRF, Wappler will be responsible for MDR's TV, radio and online programs in the areas of culture, youth, education and knowledge. Her position at SRF will be advertised internally and externally.

Wappler had "successfully established a trimedial cultural department at SRF that stands for a contemporary concept of culture - in radio, television and the Internet". She leaves behind a very efficient department with highly qualified employees. The trimedial organization of the department and the established production processes have proven their worth, according to the press release.

Nathalie Wappler has worked for Swiss television since 2005, first as editor and producer of "Kulturplatz" and from 2008 as editorial director of "Sternstunden". She began her professional career in 1996 as an editor for the 3sat format "Kulturzeit", after which she worked for ZDF's "aspekte" and "Berlin Mitte", among others.