More and more orchestras and instrumentalists are producing their own recordings these days. According to the company's press release, Idagio gives them "for the first time the opportunity to make current recordings or their archives easily available via a platform specially created for classical music".

In addition to a curated catalog already comprising several thousand hours of recordings by Karajan, Bernstein, Szell, Solti, Furtwängler, Böhm, Giulini, Maria Callas, Arthur Rubinstein and many others, the partners are represented with numerous recordings under conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Georges Prêtre and Franz Welser-Möst.

In June 2015, Idagio received an investment from Australian private equity investor Macquarie Capital, the European investor network b-to-v and other business angels.

More info: www.idagio.com
 

Basel has often hosted original festivals of new music. For example, the grandiose "European Music Month 2001" or Gidon Kremer's "Les Muséiques", a festival that mainly took place in museums. Now Baselland and Baselstadt have joined forces on the initiative of Beat Gysin to realize the "local" biennial ZeitRäume Basel. Gysin presides over the Zeiträume association, which is responsible for the festival. At the press conference on June 23 in Laufen, festival director Bernhard Günther presented the diverse and exciting program

The concept is captivating: new music conquers new spaces and a new audience. It is also convincing in terms of quality. Renowned composers write pieces for unconventional concert spaces, incorporating the spaces into the compositions. And various school classes and music schools from the city and countryside as well as students from the Music Academy are involved in the productions in original ways.

A total of around 1000 participants will perform in the two Basel venues, and over 20 indoor and outdoor spaces will be acoustically illuminated over the four days of the festival, including the Basel Minster including the cloister and forecourt, the historic city center of Laufenburg, the Volkshaus, the Badischer Bahnhof station concourse, the State Archives, an open hall in the Rhine harbor area, the Lachsländerhof, the Alte Aula in the Natural History Museum and the Stadtcasino.

What is particularly striking about this first Biennale is the mixture of professionals and amateurs, of international greats and local forces. The program includes leading international composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Dieter Schnebel, James Clarke and Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as Swiss artists Beat Furrer, Daniel Ott and Edu Haubensak. Organizers such as the Basel Symphony Orchestra or the renowned quartets that perform the "Hofkonzerte" are for once involved in educational concepts for primary school pupils and music students. This togetherness, which will be revealed in the most unconventional places in Basel, should give the festival a grandiose appeal.

New music conquers everyday spaces

The various sound installations are an important part of this music festival. For example, the Swiss Architecture Museum will be showing the exhibition The Sound of Architecture from September 4. Berlin-based composer Peter Ablinger and the Electronic Studio of the Basel Music Academy are developing a concept specially tailored to the ears in the exhibition rooms.

In the backyard of the Music Academy, you can experience Walter Fähndrich's music installation Sunset, which immerses the courtyard in sound colors subtly attuned to the location. Uncomfortable music can be found on Theaterplatz with a "walk-in audio piece" by Peter Ablinger, which turns the sounds of the city into a staged experience. Or the mysterious Tunnel Spiral in the tunnel of the City parking garage, in which young composers from Basel create an interactive sound installation.

The exponents of new music, who are often regarded as elitist, will conquer everyday spaces, as four schoolchildren did at the press conference in Laufen, playing everyday objects. Squatting on a bucket of water, they turned orange plastic buckets with wooden mallets into percussion instruments, an impressive performance in terms of dramaturgy and concentration.

Under the direction of Sylwia Zytynska, around 300 pupils will take part in the Biennale itself, acoustically occupying not only the pretty "Stetli" in Laufen, but also Freiestrasse in the city of Basel. The mayor Alexander Imhof, who was present, was justifiably proud of the enthusiasm for music in Laufen's schools.

> www.zeitraeumebasel.com

The festival takes place on September 5 and 6 in the old town and city center of the bilingual Bernese metropolis of Biel. Highlights include a gala concert with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the great Schubert Mass on a town square. Anyone who wants to can sing along.

The language issue is also reflected in the program: For this year's edition, contributions were sought that deal with bilingualism and mediate between German and French in musical and, if necessary, linguistic form.

The Schubertiade has been organized by the public cultural broadcaster Espace 2 as a popular classical music festival since 1978, and is held in a different Swiss city every two years. In Biel, the largest bilingual city in Switzerland, around 1500 musicians will perform 150 concerts at around 15 locations.

More info: www.schubertiade.ch

Extensive music libraries are a prerequisite for the streaming concept. As a rule, no service disappoints here. In their sample test, the Chip-experts can find up to 85% of all albums and around 95% of singles - including chart music, indie tracks and alternative titles. However, acoustic gaps often cannot be filled anywhere, as some artists reject the streaming model or conclude exclusive contracts with individual providers.

Price models and quality
The cost structure of the providers hardly differs: for a continuous subscription price of 10 euros per month, users not only play files endlessly via PC and cell phone, but also save favorites on their mobile device at the same time. Music can thus be listened to on the go without a network connection or load. In terms of quality, the services have no weaknesses. At up to 320 kilobits per second, the sound quality is very good and can hardly be distinguished from CD sound.

According to the museum, two historical pianos fell victim to the fire, a square piano and a grand piano from the 19th century. Other objects were severely damaged in some cases.

Ringve is the central institution for music and musical instruments in Norway and the only specialized museum in this field in the country. It was founded in 1952.

Today, the museum's collection comprises almost 2000 musical instruments from all over the world. Ringve is also responsible for several hundred instruments deposited with it by other museums and private individuals, including historical piano instruments, classical stringed instruments and parts of the ethnographic collection.

The collection of piano instruments includes an unsigned Italian virginal from around 1600, a spinet from around 1700, a large selection of clavichords from the 18th century, a harpsichord by Jacob Kirkman from 1867, a fortepiano signed by J. A. Stein in 1783 and by Congrad Graf in 1826 as well as a piano harp by Chr. Dietz from 1870.

At the same time, researchers from the Music & Health Lab led by clinical biopsychologist Urs Nater measured the stress hormone cortisol. The data suggests that the stress-reducing effect of music does not depend on the music itself, but on the reasons for listening to it.

The data shows that whenever music was played to relax the test subjects not only reported lower stress levels, but also lower cortisol levels in their saliva. This was particularly the case in the late afternoon and evening. The type of music (e.g. sad or happy, calming or activating), on the other hand, had no influence on the subjectively perceived stress after listening to music.

However, a different correlation emerged here: music that was described as calming predicted a lower alpha-amylase concentration in saliva, regardless of the reason for listening to music. Alongside cortisol, alpha-amylase is another biomarker for stress, but it is obviously produced by the body under different conditions.

Original article:
Linnemann, A., Ditzen, B., Strahler, J., Doerr, J. M., & Nater, U. M. (2015). Music listening as a means of stress reduction in daily life. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 60, 82-90.
doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.06.008.
 

With sensitive musical interventions, Peter Scherer has succeeded in building a bridge between the viewer and the protagonist without imposing a particular direction or even using any clichés, writes the Suisa Foundation.

The jury also praised the synthesis of Giger's work and Scherer's music. The sometimes electronic, sometimes acoustic sounds merged with the fantastic imagery of HR Giger's home environment in Zurich Oerlikon. "Enlightening and frightening at the same time, fascinating and multi-layered, just like Giger's art".

The award ceremony will take place on August 7, 2015 as part of the Locarno International Film Festival. Scherer previously received the prize in 2007 (for the film music to "Marmorera"). Other previous winners include Roman Lerch, Thomas Fischer, Michael Sauter, Niki Reiser and Marcel Vaid.

Of the 30,000 tickets sold, 39 percent went over the counter during the festival. 11,000 visitors took part in the free events. According to Kim Gaynor, the Verbier Festival's administrative director, ticket prices have not risen. However, the strong Swiss franc caused additional costs for residents of the eurozone, who make up 20 to 30 percent of the festival audience.

The number of viewers watching the festival on the internet is growing all the time, according to the organizers. This year, the concerts broadcast on medici.tv broke all records. Valery Gergiev's concert was watched by 34,000 viewers (the previous record holder was Martha Argerich, who brought 22,100 viewers to the screen three years ago).

They also criticize "a lack of transparency in the settlements" and speak of discrimination against creative services on the music market. With this appeal, the German professional music associations are joining the demands of the worldwide International Council of Authors in Music Collecting Societies (CIAM) that after a deduction of 20 percent of streaming revenues for the music services, the remaining 80 percent should be distributed equally, i.e. 40 percent to labels and artists on the one hand and 40 percent to authors and publishers on the other.

According to the appeal, the 15 largest steaming services such as Apple, Spotify, Deezer, Napster and Wimp generated sales of over 100 million euros in Germany in the first half of 2015 alone, according to the music industry. 2.5 million Germans already use monthly subscriptions for 9 to 10 euros. In three years, market researchers expect 12 million streaming customers in Germany alone. On the global market, the use of paid subscription services for music is growing by almost 40 percent and accounts for 23 percent of the digital market.

In over 37 countries around the world, the share of streaming is already greater than the share of downloads. For composers, lyricists, music publishers and artists too, this could turn into a million-dollar grave, because although streaming services are taking millions of euros worldwide, they are not giving creatives a fair share. The largest share of streaming revenues would be taken by the multinational recording companies, who would often only pass on small portions to their artists.

There were a total of 625 applications from 56 countries and five continents, of which 232 soloists and piano duos were invited to Munich following the anonymous evaluation of submitted recordings by a preliminary jury.

Listed as Swiss representatives are Sébastian Jacot, Anja Kreuzer and Héléna Macherel in the flute category and Jardena Flückiger in the voice category. Louise Anna Pollock is listed as a Swedish-Swiss participant in the trombone category.

The trombone category will kick off the competition on August 31 at the BR-Funkhaus. The trombonists are taking part for only the sixth time in the history of the competition. The ARD Music Competition is a rare opportunity for wind players in particular to present themselves as soloists. In the popular singing category, on the other hand, the best young artists are being sought for the 38th time this year.

The competition ends with the prizewinners' concerts on September 16, 17 and 18 in the Prinzregententheater and the Herkulessaal of the Residenz. From the semi-finals onwards, the musicians will be accompanied by three renowned orchestras: the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

In 2016, the subjects double bass, harp, horn and string quartet will be performed in Munich, and in 2017 violin, oboe, piano and guitar.

After completing a Bachelor's degree in music at WIAM, students can go on to further specialized courses. The new Bachelor's degree course is already well-filled with applications, writes the provider. It is still possible to qualify for the few remaining study places with late entrance examinations, which will take place on August 8, 2015.

The WIAM was founded in 1997 by jazz saxophonist and flautist Albert Landolt. Landolt had already founded the St.Gallen Jazz School in 1982, but separated from this institution in 1997. Middlesex University London has more than 30,000 students worldwide.

More info: www.wiam.ch
 

The website is an extensive Bruckner internet portal, which contains electronic documentation of manuscript sources as well as compositions, relevant persons and places. In addition, complete digital copies of all manuscripts, first editions and the Alte Gesamtausgabe are made available.

In the first stage of the project, all music manuscripts in Germany and abroad were documented. Currently, 740 signatures have been recorded in a database and most of them have also been philologically annotated. Synergies have resulted from the largely completed digitization of the Bruckner autographs and early copies by the music collection of the Austrian National Library (ÖNB). The ÖNB has made all manuscript digital copies available to the web project free of charge (around 19,000 individual images).

At the same time, around 7000 color images of sources in Austrian archives have been produced in high technical quality. The Upper Austrian Provincial Museum Linz, the Library of Congress Washington, the Library of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the Vienna Library in City Hall have already made existing digital copies available.
 

With his project "Trost in der Musik", Fabian Klausberger (Bachelor of Music, School Music, majoring in piano) demonstrates a "high professional sense of musical impact and thematically appropriate stage presence", writes the ZHdK. It is an "outstanding work that impresses not least with its documentation with a high degree of authenticity and reflection".

With "Bagman hopes", Benjamin Kobi (Bachelor Music and Movement) tells the dramaturgically convincing story of a clochard who is encouraged to fantasize by what he finds in the city's garbage, the ZHdK continued. The project not only impresses with its excellent professional composition, but also with its portrayal of the character of the clochard with acrobatic elements.

Further sponsorship awards go to Don Schmocker (game design), Lara Stoll (film), Brigham Baker (photography), a student collective consisting of Sophie Arbeiter, Pan Aurel Bucher, Tim Czerwonatis, Anne Eigner, Silvan Frick, Miro Maurer, Mirjam Rast, Robert Rozic, Mirza Sakic, Tatjana Sebben, Tonio Schneider and Anna Wohlgemuth (theater) and Martina Tobler (aesthetic education and socioculture).
 

On the occasion of the 150th birthday of Jaques-Dalcroze, who was born in Vienna and lived and studied here for ten years, the "2nd International Conference of Dalcroze Studies" will take place in Vienna in 2015. The most important findings of current research and practice within Dalcroze Studies, as well as related fields worldwide, will be presented, including above all research on the relationship between music and movement in the fields of music, dance, somatic practice, theater and therapy.

Born in Vienna, the Swiss Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865 - 1950) was a pioneer of modern music education and also influenced modern dance with the rhythmic gymnastics he developed. To mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, a commemorative plaque will be placed at his birthplace in Vienna, Am Hof 8, on July 26.

More info: www.mdw.ac.at/569

According to Gema, the licensing and processing center established by the three collecting societies will enable simplified access to music rights for digital music services as well as faster and more accurate licensing and billing for music authors and publishers. Robert Ashcroft, Chief Executive of the English partner PRS for Music, will initially be responsible for setting up the licensing area of the joint venture.

The joint venture's offering is aimed at all pan-European digital music services wishing to acquire licensing rights, as well as publishers and collecting societies wishing to use either the entire service package including licensing or individual back-office services. The new licensing and processing center combines the repertoires of the three participating collecting societies and thus offers licensees the opportunity to acquire a single, multi-territory license.