In addition to an exhibition and concerts, a competition was also held at the festival. In the first category (up to the age of 18), the following young talents were awarded prizes:
1st prize: Sylvain Moeri, Conservatoire Populaire, Genève
2nd prize: Nelson Javet, Conservatoire de Musique, Lausanne
3rd prize: Marwan Hemma, Conservatoire de Musique, Lausanne

The following young guitarists were awarded prizes in the second category (aged 18 and over):
1st prize: Marco Musso, University of Music, Graz
2nd prize: Angel Tomas-Ripoll, HEMU Genève
3rd prize: Guillaume Geny, HEMU Lausanne, site Sion

Further information on
www.versoix.ch/bolero/home.php?page=1476&obj=9765

Photo: zVg

Marco Musso, Guillaume Geny, Angel Tomas-Ripoll (from left)

The Gradual from the former St. Katharinental monastery, a chorale book weighing thirteen kilograms and dating from 1312, is one of the most precious and magnificent manuscripts in our country. It contains numerous artistically high-quality miniatures on a gold background, filigree initials, musical notes and Latin hymn texts. Almost 60 years ago, the Swiss National Museum bought it back from the art market for 400,000 francs with the financial support of the Canton of Thurgau.

From November 29, it can now be seen for two months in the newly renovated Frauenfeld Castle as part of the castle exhibition "Zankapfel Thurgau", which focuses on the turbulent but also artistically productive period of the 14th and 15th centuries.

On the first Sunday of Advent, the specialist ensemble La Morra will perform two chants from the Graduale. Art historian Elke Jezler will explain the special features of the exclusive Thurgau medieval manuscript in more detail. Families and young guests will also be taken on a journey into medieval everyday and monastery life by the castle figures, the chambermaid Barbara and the cook Elsi. Admission to Advent Sunday (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) is free.
 

The "(in)visible transitions" project is a contribution to a series of events taking place around the world to mark the start of the COP21 climate conference in Paris. "Les 24h du Climat" is a global performance network and aims to raise public awareness and engagement for the climate protection goals of COP21: On Monday, November 30, artist Christina Della Giustina and musicians will perform a composition based on climate data from the water cycle of trees in the three tropical houses and parts of the outdoor area of the University of Zurich Botanical Gardens.

The ZHdK research project "Trees: Making ecophysiological processes audible" was also personally invited by French President François Hollande during his visit to the ZHdK in April 2015. It uses the sounds produced in trees during drought to show how natural phenomena can be made tangible and conscious through artistic and scientific processes.

The installation will be on display in Hall 3 at the Parc des Expositions Le Bourget in Paris for the duration of the World Climate Summit. It is the result of a research project by the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology at ZHdK and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The project has been running since 2012 and has just been completed. The artistic director of the project is Marcus Maeder (ZHdK), the scientific partner is Roman Zweifel (WSL).

According to information from the Austrian Federal Administration, the number of quasi-international organizations in Austria is currently in the low single-digit range.
Attempts to establish such organizations in Austria are under strong competitive pressure, not least from Switzerland. The country therefore wants to increase Austria's competitiveness as a location for quasi-international organizations by introducing tax privileges.

The number of Austrian private foundations has also been falling since 2012. This is to be countered with preferential tax treatment for foundations and the tax deductibility of donations.

The Austrian Cultural Council takes note of the drafts with skepticism. It fears a trend towards the privatization of cultural funding with developments towards a donation culture that favours cultural offerings that appeal to "a large audience with a lot of advertising". Funding for less popular cultural institutions, on the other hand, would be made more difficult.

Statement of the Austrian Cultural Council:
kulturrat.at/agenda/brennpunkte/20151112

The digitized manuscripts come from the Vienna City Hall Library, the Austrian National Library, the Norwegian National Library and the Berlin State Library. First and early prints were recently added from the music collection of the Austrian National Library. The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) is thus making central works by the famous Austrian composer accessible to researchers and music lovers all over the world via a joint portal on the web.

The database was created as part of a project funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund and has been maintained since 2010 by the former Commission for Music Research, now the Musicology Department of the Institute for Art and Music History Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

At present, music autographs from the music collection as well as letters and life documents from the manuscript collection of the Vienna Library in City Hall, music autographs as well as first and early prints from the music collection of the Austrian National Library and music autographs from the music department of the Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage and the Norwegian National Library can be viewed. There are plans to expand the database in cooperation with other collections.

More info: www.schubert-online.at
 

According to the Max Weber Foundation, the repertoire of courtly and urban art music in the Ottoman Empire was recorded in an increasing number of manuscripts from the 19th century onwards - in a notation developed before 1812. Western notation was also increasingly used from the mid-1830s. The critical edition and editing of the manuscript holdings in both forms of notation is intended to enable the transmission of an art music culture that was cultivated until the early 20th century in the metropolises of present-day Turkey as well as in the urban centers of Syria and Egypt.

The aim of the long-term project is to produce critical editions of the central manuscripts in Hamparsum notation from the 19th century in a first project phase. The second phase is primarily dedicated to the critical edition of selected manuscripts written in Western notation from this period. The song texts will be edited in parallel in an interdisciplinary network.

As an open access publication, the CMO edition is published by the editorial team perspectivia.net (Max Weber Foundation); in addition, the editions of the individual manuscripts will be available as book-on-demand editions. The project, led by Ralf Martin Jäger, an expert in ethnomusicology from the Institute of Musicology at the University of Münster, is being carried out in Münster, Istanbul and Bonn and is supported by an international academic advisory board.
 

Without timpani and trumpets, a concert series of the smallest scale and greatest significance was established in 2013 on Helvetiaplatz in Bern, near the historical museum: the Forum Kammermusik - five concerts under the artistic direction of pianist Hiroko Sakagami, with the participation of outstanding musicians from Switzerland and abroad, such as the Carmina Quartet, Erich Höbarth, Patrick and Thomas Demenga and many others.

The concept is as simple as it is convincing: chamber music with piano is played in the acoustically well-sounding room of the Yehudi Menuhin Forum in various instrumentations of strings and winds from the classical, romantic and more recent periods. The concerts - always on Sundays - start at 5 pm and last around 90 minutes. Afterwards, an après-concert in the basement offers the opportunity to come into direct contact with the musicians over food and drink.
The concert series is supported by a small group of music enthusiasts and prominent personalities such as Thomas Füri, Alexander Wick, Michael Kaufmann and Werner Schmitt under the honorary patronage of the President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga.

At the next concert (Sunday, November 29, 2015), Erich Höbarth (violin), Patrick Demenga (violoncello) and Hiroko Sakagami (piano) will perform works by W.A. Mozart (Trio in E major KV 542), Alfred Schnittke (Piano Trio 1985/1992) and Franz Schubert (Trio in E flat major, D. 929)

More details under www.forumkammermusik.ch
 

According to the canton's press release, the project essentially consists of two sub-areas. On the one hand, the intercantonal platform for cultural mediation was established between 2013 and 2015 together with the cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell Ausserrhoden. www.kklick.ch be built up.

Since August 2014, cultural offerings in Eastern Switzerland have been presented on this website, organized by region, sector and school level. This website, which requires a lot of support and is already well used by schools, is to be continuously adapted and expanded in line with user needs using the lottery funds.

The second part of the "Culture and School" project consists of a contact network of teachers responsible for culture in schools who are responsible for anchoring culture in their respective schools.

Both areas of the project are to be further supported and expanded in the years 2016 to 2018 with the money provided. In addition to elementary school, the focus is now also shifting to secondary schools and vocational schools. The long-term goal is to have a teacher responsible for culture at every school in the canton of Thurgau so that cultural activities have a permanent place in the curriculum.

As was the case for the project period from 2013 to 2015, Stephanie Kasper and Cornelia Spillmann will continue to be responsible for the internet platform and the network of cultural representatives for the project period from 2016 to 2018.

With the Klanghaus, a center for natural sound music is to be created in the upper Toggenburg on Lake Schwendi, which will expand the Toggenburg sound world. As a sound workshop, it will be available to both professional musicians and amateurs for rehearsals, courses and experiments.

In November last year, the public planning process began with the design plan, the partial zoning plan, the partial road plan and the amendment of the protection ordinance. In any case, the construction project will only be started once the co-financing of CHF 5 million from private donors has been secured. A total of three objections were received against the partial zoning plan and the partial road plan, which were withdrawn after negotiations.

In the November session, parliament will discuss the matter at first reading. If the Cantonal Council approves the bill, the people will decide on the construction of the Klanghaus in the fall of 2016.

Under the direction of Simone Heilgendorff from the University of Salzburg, musicologists are researching the international scene of new art music across national borders for the first time. Renowned festivals in three European capitals are at the heart of the research project: the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the Paris Festival d'Automne and the Wien Modern Festival.

In addition to reviewing historical material, the international team of researchers is primarily trying to map the changes in the new music scene. Aspects of content are examined, but also factors such as music management and promotion. As a central part of the success of festivals, the actors are also the focus of the analyses: above all the curators, composers and musicians.

The research team analyzes the lives of selected individuals and ensembles in biographical portraits, for example of Jagoda Szmytka, Georg Friedrich Haas, Hugues Dufourt or Helmut Lachenmann and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien and Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej.

Finally, the audience is also part of the research project, providing answers to questions about age, education, motivation, expectations, internationality and their own connections to contemporary (art) music in detailed surveys conducted in 2014. The results of the audience survey will be presented at Wien Modern in Vienna on November 22.

More info: uni-salzburg.at/index.php?id=63709
 

The first round of data collection has been carried out in more than 50 school classes from the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, Cologne and Kassel regions as part of the KuBiK5 research project, short for "Effect of cultural education on creativity in the 5th school year". The study differs from previous studies in that family and individual factors are taken into account in addition to school and extracurricular characteristics.

The study assumes that cultural education is of great importance for the development of personality and creativity. Cultural education is seen as an indispensable part of a comprehensive education. At school, it is usually the subjects of art, music or sport in which children come into contact with cultural education.

The project is part of the "Research Fund for Cultural Education - Studies on the Effects of Cultural Education", a project of the Council for Cultural Education, funded by Stiftung Mercator. An independent commission selected KuBiK5 alongside five other projects from a total of 78 project applications received.

More info: www.alanus.edu

Just over a year ago, Alexander Steinegger, the previous managing director, took over Krompholz Musik AG as part of a management buy-out from Loeb Holding AG at a new address: Effingerstrasse 51 in Bern. Now the music store, which is celebrating its 160th anniversary this year, is getting another location, a branch in Lucerne.

Krompholz specializes in acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments, acoustic guitars, small instruments and music supplies. At the new location, the music store offers a wide range of high-quality instruments in every price category, as well as a comprehensive package of services. "Lucerne and the surrounding area is already considered an important region, which was previously served from Bern. We are now looking forward to being closer to our existing customers and establishing new partnerships," says Alexander Steinegger. With a comprehensive piano and grand piano service, Krompholz is an experienced and competent partner for concert organizers.

At the opening on November 14, 2015, Lucerne guitarist and beatboxer Damian Lynn will be playing in the store at Klosterstrasse 11, while up-and-coming musician Ishantu will be performing a number of live gigs in the city center (Bahnhof room).

www.krompholz.ch

Christmas is celebrated all over the world, in this country in the deep snowy winter, but in other countries in blazing heat under a bright sun. But everywhere the singing of Christmas carols is part of the festivities. Some songs, like Adeste fideles or Silent night can be heard all over the world. All countries also have their very own songs that reflect their respective customs and traditions. The new song project series, published by Carus and Reclam, is dedicated to them.

The new songbook contains 72 songs from 40 countries Christmas carols from all over the world. The spectrum is wide-ranging. The book, which comes with a sing-along CD to make it easy to get to know the songs, is accompanied by two CDs with a selection of the most beautiful songs, a choir book and a song booklet in paperback format.

The song project - a charity project for singing with children

The German Cultural Council is pleased that, according to the text that has now been adopted, collecting societies are to promote culturally significant works and performances and set up pension and support schemes for their beneficiaries. The draft bill still contained an optional provision.

The German Cultural Council also considers the proposed provision on the provision of security to be positive in order to ensure that manufacturers and importers of devices and storage media meet their remuneration obligations even after protracted legal disputes.

According to the statement from the Cultural Council, however, it is regrettable that there are still plans to force members of supervisory bodies to disclose sensitive personal data or, with regard to companies, information relevant to competition. It is also a pity that the collecting societies should publish the overall agreements concluded on their websites. This would ultimately mean that business secrets would have to be disclosed.

The Cultural Council particularly regrets that the VGG "missed the opportunity to clarify publisher participation in the remuneration of collecting societies". According to Olaf Zimmermann, Managing Director of the German Cultural Council, a solution must be found above all for the "publisher's share in the income of the collecting societies based on rights of use or statutory remuneration claims", which has been pending for years.
 

At its annual conference, which this time takes place at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, the Austrian Society for Musicology brings together academics from leading international universities. The focus is on musical performance. The conference will not least explore the question of how practice-oriented intuitive knowledge and analytically sound musicological knowledge can work together fruitfully.

The main lectures will be given by Kai Köpp (Bern University of the Arts, "Musikgeschichte als Interpretationsgeschichte - neue Quellen, neue
Challenges"), Joshua Rifkin (Boston University), John Rink (University of Cambridge), Renee Timmers (University of Sheffield) and Sarah Weiss (YaleNUSCollege Singapore).

Further presentations by Bernese researchers: Johannes Gebauer will be giving a lecture on editions of Pierre Rode's 24 Caprices for violin, and Sebastian Bausch will be analyzing the interpretation of Josef Pembaur's Beethoven recordings.

The conference will also feature two world premieres and the presentation of a reconstruction of a historical trumpet automaton.

More info: www.kug.ac.at/performance-analysis