Groszer has "decisively shaped the Zurich Opera House with great artistic vision, great passion and the necessary perseverance". With his "gentle modesty and his clever, confident manner, his humor and his enthusiasm", he knew how to motivate his employees in all areas to deliver top performances, the opera house continued.

Groszer was director of the Landestheater Tübingen from 1964 to 1967, director of the Stadttheater St. Gallen from 1967 to 1972, general director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig from 1972 to 1978, director of the Staatstheater Wiesbaden from 1978 to 1986 and director of the Opernhaus Zürich from 1986 to 1991.

The new platform www.kulturraum.sh aims to promote dialog between creative artists, event organizers and the public. Organizers can present their cultural offerings and network with creative artists and other organizers. Cultural professionals receive a free web presence. Providers of rooms that are rented out for cultural purposes in the Schaffhausen region can publish their offers. The new platform was designed by the municipal cultural service at the suggestion of the municipal cultural commission.

Kulturkiste.sh shows the cultural offerings for children and young people in the Schaffhausen region. Organizers, creative artists and art educators can provide information about their work. Teachers at all levels can find cultural education offers in the region. Families can use the agenda to find out about theater, concerts, workshops, stories, exhibitions and much more that is explicitly tailored to them.

The new platform was designed in line with the Schaffhausen government's legislative goal for the years 2013-2016, which focuses on promoting projects and initiatives for cultural outreach to all social classes and age groups in the area of cultural promotion.

The hip-hop dance group from the Protestant community in Davos has set up outside next to the brass band. The mixed choir is positioned behind a piano trio in the bar of the Hotel Schweizerhof. At 5 pm sharp, everyone starts singing and playing at the same time. Although the hip-hopper dancers have their ghetto blasters with them with the appropriate music, they are also accompanied by the marches of the Davos Music Society. Brahms' first piano trio meets folk songs in Swiss dialect. The Mozart divertimento of the string orchestra in the foyer is accompanied by a somewhat penetrating rattle. Everyone is serious and fully engaged. The audience moves freely between the ensembles and solo musicians - across staircases and corridors. Bratwurst is served outside. John Cage's Musicircus The opening weekend of the 30th Davos Festival is a small happening. Conventional concert patterns are broken up. The boundaries between musical styles have been erased. This is very important to the artistic director Reto Bieri. "For me, this performance is also an interesting social study. The music groups are completely free in their interpretation. It's exciting to observe who is more reserved or who simply plays louder in order to be heard."

The seven wind players of the Austrian formation Federspiel wander between the individual ensembles and focus on working together. "Let's improvise", trumpeter Simon Zöchbauer asks the woodwind trio of the Spanish Azahar ensemble. The key and tempo are briefly clarified. And the Rondino finale of Erwin Schulhoff's Divertissement is heard in a completely new version - with trumpet repetitions and an organ point in the trombone. What happens here on a small scale also happens on a large scale. Young, highly talented musicians get to know each other and develop something new together. Around 70 music students from 20 European countries are on site for the entire two-week festival. "Something special has to happen here in Davos. We need time for that. And boredom. Spectacular boredom," remarks the artistic director in the press conference.

In addition to the 45 chamber music concerts at twelve different locations, including the train station and Stafelalp, there are also spontaneous sessions in the hotel lobby, for example when a few string players play jazz or the members of the chamber choir, which invites guests to "Sing for everyone" every morning at 10 a.m., delight the hotel guests at midnight with artfully arranged folk songs.

The slightly increased total budget for 2015 amounts to around 630,000 Swiss francs. At 65%, the proportion of sponsors is above average. 24 % of the budget is financed by ticket prices, while subsidies amount to 11%. In Davos, everything is produced in-house and exclusively - an important unique selling point in the interchangeable festival business. The proportion of new music is high.

Bieri's predecessor Graziella Contratto, who directed the chamber music festival from 2007 to 2013, had also brought a breath of fresh air to Davos, bringing young early music specialists to the festival and opening up the repertoire to jazz. Dance courses in a carpentry workshop, hotel concerts, conducting for children, hiking concerts and the recital on the Schatzalp were among her innovations.

Bieri wants to anchor the festival in the heart of life and also attract audiences who have not previously found their way to concerts in the well-known climatic health resort. This is why the Parsenn Yodel Choir and the Alphorners Davos-Klosters are also taking part in John Cage. That's why there is a listening tour through the forest for children and young reporters reporting on the festival. The concert motto "Roundabout" is deliberately taken from everyday life. Many Swiss towns are characterized by traffic circles. Davos doesn't even have a traffic light. The entire festival program is about repetitions and cycles, junctions and even the odd dead end that leads nowhere artistically.

"RoundAbout" is the name of the opening concert in the rather dull, carpeted hall of the Hotel Schweizerhof. Martin Meuli, head physician at Zurich Children's Hospital, gives a refreshing lecture on cell division and metabolic cycles. And the circles are also explored musically. Joe Zawinul's The Harvest ends as it began - with tone-bound rhythms that the musicians of Federspiel drum onto the mouthpieces of their instruments. Schubert's Andante from the string quartet Death and the girlThe variations of the piece, which the young musicians of Cuarteto Gerhard are not quite up to, are cyclical in nature. The spoked music by Basel artist and instrument inventor Lukas Rohner on a converted bicycle is original, but does not lead to a clear artistic statement.

The composer in residence is the French composer Marc-André Dalbavie. He composes the rhythmically concise, thoroughly melodic-tonal Piano Trio No. 1 in a captivating interpretation by Gilles Grimaitre (piano), Jonian Ilias Kadesha (violin) and Vasthi Hunter (cello). During the interval, you stand in the backyard of the hotel in the dark, sipping your glass of champagne. The glamor factor tends towards zero. Like many other hotels, the Schweizerhof is closed in summer.

How well the summer balance turns out depends heavily on the weather. This year, there were 16 percent fewer overnight stays by Germans due to the high Swiss franc exchange rate. "However, we were able to make up for this with guests from other countries such as Poland, Hungary and Scandinavia," says Paul Petzold, Head of Tourism at Davos-Klosters. He does not believe in special discounts for Germans, as offered by some Swiss resorts. "A huge mistake! How can we justify something like that to our other guests?" In addition, Davos is one of the top destinations where visitors are less price-sensitive.

The Davos Festival has hardly any effect on the number of overnight stays here. There is no real festival audience that comes here for the concerts. Most concert-goers are Davos or Zurich residents who have a second home in the climatic health resort at 1560 meters above sea level. Or holidaymakers who are already in Graubünden anyway. They come to the open-air concert in the Kurpark despite the rain, where the cheerful, highly musical Federspiel brass players manage the balancing act between yodeling and jazz and can even sound like a Mexican mariachi ensemble. Around 200 guests stand with their umbrellas between the wet beer benches and listen intently to what the likeable guys from the neighboring country can combine.

"Young Artists in Concert" is the subtitle of the chamber music festival founded by Michael Haefliger in 1986. There are many talents to discover, such as the formidable Dudok Kwartet from Amsterdam, which performs Brahms' second string quartet in the Alexander Chapel with wonderful transparency and homogeneity. "But we also have some more experienced musicians here, such as the members of the Amaryllis Quartet, who act as teachers and sit at the first desks in the Davos Festival Camerata. This exchange is important to me," says Reto Bieri.

The unconventional 40-year-old Swiss doesn't have a cell phone. It only distracts him. What's more, without a cell phone, agreements are highly binding. But you can still find him. "I'm always circling around here during the festival anyway." At the Kreisleriana concert, works by the distantly related Fritz and Georg Kreisler come together. Schumann's Kreisleriana must not be missing in the somewhat colorless interpretation by Oliwia Grabowska. The Amaryllis Quartet roughens up Beethoven's String Quartet op. 59/3. And they deliver a highly dramatic finish that makes the older audience, which is made up of young festival musicians, scream.

Citizens in Germany can upload sounds to a large sound map, share them with others and show what their own city, neighborhood or home village sounds like. All uploaded sounds will be entered into a prize draw at regular intervals.

In addition to the campaign itself, the campaign website provides interesting facts about current sound and noise research in cities. Special topics include psychoacoustics and noise research, animal noises in the city, favorite places and favorite sounds, city hits and city music as well as children in the city.

In Basel, the exhibition "KlangRaum - RaumKlang" is focusing on the sound of cities until December 10. It aims to sharpen our understanding of the acoustic qualities of places and spaces. And in Lucerne, the composer Tod Machover has called on citizens to collect sounds, noises and background information in order to compose a sounding portrait of Lucerne. The symphony will be premiered on September 5 with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra and Matthias Pintscher as part of Lucerne Festival im Sommer.

Website of Stadtklang 2015: www.stadtklang2015.de
 

According to Bahram Jamali, the ministry's music commissioner, the occasion for a performance by the Vienna Philharmonic would be the state visit of Austrian President Heinz Fischer to Tehran in September. Neither the Vienna Philharmonic nor the Berlin Philharmonic have confirmed any such talks.

The last time the Berliner Philharmoniker performed in Iran was in 1979. With the Islamic revolution, the situation for music became increasingly difficult. Extreme interpretations of Islamic scripture generally prohibit music for religious reasons in Islam. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disbanded the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, a decision that was reversed by his successor Hassan Ruhani.  

The winners of the Young Artist of the Year category are Bryan Hymel (vocals), Sonya Yoncheva (vocals), Florian Noack (piano), Sophie Pacini (piano) and Nemanja Radulović (violin). The prize for promoting young talent goes to Classic Scouts and the Freie Grundschule Wernigerode. The Klassik-für-Kinder prize goes to the recording The Emperor's Nightingale by Helbling Verlag with Uģis Prauliņš, Michala Petri, Malte Arkona, Klaas Stok and the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart.

According to the German Music Industry Association (BVMI), other award winners include Jonas Kaufmann (Singer of the Year), Joyce DiDonato (Singer of the Year), Elīna Garanča (Solo Recording of the Year/Vocals), Lang Lang (Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano) and Andreas Ottensamer (Instrumentalist of the Year/Clarinet).

The official award ceremony will take place on Sunday, October 18, 2015 as part of a gala at the Konzerthaus Berlin. The evening will be broadcast by ZDF on the same evening.

The complete list: www.echoklassik.de

The sub-subject "Musical Culture" can be combined with any second subject from the canon of digital philology, German studies, history, philosophy, political science, sociology, computer science, sports science or economics. The course, which is run jointly by the University's Institute of Philosophy and the Darmstadt Academy of Music, combines artistic practice, social reflection, music theory, aesthetics and music philosophy.

According to Cord Meijering, the academy's director, the course is a fully-fledged university music degree, with which students should achieve a multiple qualification in the tradition of the ancient Seven Liberal Arts. Preparation for the challenges of new modern professions in the cultural sector is achieved through a combination of practical music-making and education in the humanities.

Study requirements are the general higher education entrance qualification or entrance qualification for universities of applied sciences as well as proof of artistic aptitude to be completed at the academy.
 

The DOV is threatening "massive resistance to the Thuringian State Chancellery's plans to cut orchestras and theaters in the Free State of Thuringia, which have become public". According to media reports, the German National Theatre in Weimar is to give up its opera division, the state orchestra in Eisenach is to be dissolved and the Thuringia Philharmonic Orchestra in Gotha is to be merged with the orchestra in Erfurt and downsized, writes the association in a press release.

The current downsizing and merger plans of Minister Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff are unacceptable, explains DOV Managing Director Gerald Mertens. The way in which Thuringian artists and their associations are being treated is unworthy.

According to the DOV, it had offered the Thuringian State Chancellery a dialog on the situation and future of orchestras and theaters. Now, as a professional association, it is being presented with a fait accompli. According to the DOV, in the past 25 years, more than 400 of the 1,000 musician positions in Thuringia have already been cut.

Located to the north of Bavaria, Thuringia is one of the smaller federal states in Germany and was formerly part of the GDR. It includes culturally rich cities such as Erfurt, Jena, Weimar, Gotha, Eisenach, Rudolstadt and Meiningen.
 

The Heinrich Danioth Foundation for Art and Culture in Uri was founded in 1981. Since 1982, it has awarded annual grants and recognition to artists and cultural workers in the following fields: visual arts, music, literature, dance, theater, film, photography, new media. CHF 24,000 is available for the grants (excluding studios).

A four-month studio residency in Berlin and in New York (residency 2017) are also available. Artists can also apply to purchase an artwork.

Eligible to participate are professional artists who live in Uri, grew up here or are entitled to reside here and are connected to Uri. For further information see: www.ur.ch (search term: art and cultural foundation).

Applications should be sent by October 16, 2015 to: Office for Culture and Sport, Daniothstiftung, Klausenstrasse 4, 6460 Altdorf, Tel. 041 875 20 96, E-Mail: josef.schuler@ur.ch

The City of Thun's "Kulturstreuer" prize, endowed with CHF 5,000, goes to Sabine and Tuomas Kaipainen for their services to the promotion of culture and art. The musician Jonas Tschanz, who grew up in Steffisburg, is being honored with a 10,000 Swiss franc prize to promote culture. The 2015 Art Prize of the City of Thun in the amount of CHF 10,000 goes to the visual artist Stefan Guggisberg, who grew up in Thun. The visual artist Tanja Schwarz also receives a sponsorship award.

The musician couple Sabine and Tuomas Kaipainen are now in their ninth year of co-directing the concert series "Im Rathaus um 4". Both have already taken part in numerous recordings and concerts, for example at the festivals in Moscow and Helsinki. They have taught at numerous master classes, including at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

The classical saxophonist Jonas Tschanz completed his studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel in 2014. In his still young career, he has already won various Swiss music prizes. His concert activities have already taken him all over Europe, to China and Japan, both as a soloist and as a member of ensembles.

The Lucerne-based Marianne and Curt Dienemann Foundation, which has set itself the task of promoting training and further development in the fields of jazz, classical music and literature, dedicated its ninth music competition to chamber music. 25 ensembles applied to take part in the audition.

A first prize of 15,000 francs went to the Made In Trio with David Dias da Silva, clarinet, Rute Fernandes, flute, and Petralia Sinforosa, piano. A second main prize of CHF 10,000 was awarded to the duo Damien Bachmann, clarinet, and François-Xavier Poizat, piano.

Recognition prizes in the amount of 4,000 to 8,000 francs were awarded to: Saxophone quartet Strax Bravura, Trio Aeterno, Trio Saitenwind, Duo Graf-Gregor. A special prize (CHF 3,000) was awarded to cellist Gunta Abele from Duo Art.
 

Last December, the board of the Stanser Musiktage association decided to pause the festival in 2015 due to the financial situation, according to the event's website. Instead, a successful two-day charity event took place.

In recent months, the Board of Directors, with the help of an external specialist, has been able to raise funds of around CHF 250,000 to achieve the renovation goal. The donors include private donors, the canton of Nidwalden and the municipality of Stans.

Esther Unternährer and Marc Rambold are the new co-festival directors. Lucerne jazz musician Marc Unternährer is the new program director on a mandate basis. The Stanser Musiktage 2016 will take place from Tuesday, April 5 to Sunday, April 10.

The village square becomes the new festival center with bars and a live stage. The food on offer will be centralized on the Steinmättli. As usual, the program in the various venues in Stans will be characterized by stylistic openness - world, jazz and pop sounds will come together.
 

The current cultural ordinance of the Canton of Obwalden dates back to 1985 and is in need of fundamental reform. The areas of cultural promotion and cultural institutions are to be newly regulated in the KuG. The other areas (preservation of monuments/archaeology, protection of cultural assets, libraries) will be transferred unchanged to the KuG.

According to the cantonal constitution, the promotion of culture is the responsibility of the canton and the communes. This principle is enshrined in law in the new KuG. The law also regulates cantonal contributions to cultural institutions that are important to the canton. Finally, the new KuG contains a regulation on cantonal contributions to cultural institutions of supra-regional importance in other cantons. In practice, the KuG does not result in any new tasks or significant additional costs.

With the new KuG, the canton has been given the task of maintaining a historical museum. However, it is the intention of the cantonal government to delegate the management of the museum to third parties on the basis of a service agreement. The Historical Museum has been run by the Obwalden Historical Association since its foundation. However, the canton could manage the Historical Museum itself should no sponsor be found one day.

The new article on the Historical Museum and the proposed tasks of the municipalities in the promotion of culture were subjected to a second consultation procedure from mid-January to mid-April 2015. The changes made were generally welcomed. Parliamentary discussion of the Culture Act is scheduled for the Cantonal Council meeting on October 22, 2015.

The LAC's concert and theater hall is clad entirely in wood. Its stage consists of an acoustic shell with modular sliding elements. In addition to the hall, the LAC also houses the Museo d'Arte della Svizzera Italiana, which brings together the Museo Cantonale d'Arte and the Museo d'Arte della città di Lugano.

The LAC will be inaugurated in September with three renditions of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony by the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana and the RSI Choir under the direction of Vladimir Ashkenazy, as well as nine performances of "La Verità" by Compagnia Finzi Pasca.

The 2500 square meter museum houses a permanent collection and a modular space over two floors for temporary exhibitions. It brings together works from all over the world. The opening exhibition "Orizzonte Nord-Sud" features 150 exhibits - including works by Giacometti, Segantini, Klee and Turner.

Website of the center: www.luganolac.ch

As the population grows, urban space becomes scarcer and sound spaces become denser. Despite this, architecture and urban planning pay little attention to acoustic changes to spaces and places, with visual aspects taking center stage. Yet it is important for our well-being that visual and auditory sensory impressions are given equal consideration in the design of indoor and outdoor spaces.

Experience shows that negative room acoustics are often only corrected retrospectively with aesthetically questionable and costly measures. If the sound qualities of existing places and new spaces were taken into account at an early stage and suitable forms and materials were chosen for the design, the acoustic facets of a city could be positively influenced in a targeted manner. Ideally, places and spaces worth listening to would be created - a city that sounds good and can contribute to a higher quality of life in urban areas.

The exhibition "KlangRaum - RaumKlang" aims to sharpen our understanding of the auditory perception of space and materials. It presents sound installations by experts from the fields of audio design, corporate sound and acoustic spatial staging. The program of the lecture evenings includes twelve presentations by renowned architects, acousticians, authors and musicians, who will address the topic of spatial sound from various specialist perspectives.

Info:
KlangRaum - RaumKlang. Auditory perception of space and materials, lecture series and panel event at schauraum-b, Austrasse 24, Basel. August 20 - December 10, 2015, Mon - Fri, 8 am to 12 noon and 2 pm to 5 pm. Admission free.