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.

The prize, donated by the Government of Navarre, also includes performances with the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, the Cascais e Oeiras Chamber Orchestra, the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra and the Filharmonia Poznanska. As part of a recital at the Madrid Conservatory, Lakatos will also have the opportunity to play the Stradivarius owned by the Conservatory.

The American Angela Wee received 10,000 euros as the second prize winner of the competition, donated by the city of Pamplona.

Born in Novi Sad in 1991, Robert Lakatos studied in his home town with Dejan Mihailovic and at the Zurich University of the Arts with Rudolf Koelman. He was a scholarship holder of the Swiss Lyra Foundation.
 

Added to this are 17 percent who currently have no art lessons. This means that 50 percent of pupils report that their art lessons do not take place regularly; the same applies to music lessons (49 percent). With regard to the question of equal opportunities, the Council for Cultural Education writes that there is also a disparity between secondary schools and grammar schools.

According to their own statements, 54% of respondents in secondary schools do not have regular art lessons (43% in grammar schools) and 55% do not have regular music lessons (41% in grammar schools). For the representative study, 1430 people aged 16 and over were surveyed nationwide in face-to-face oral interviews.

As part of the project, trained dance teachers will teach the basics of dance and movement theater to children in 3rd and 4th grade at all-day elementary school. In particular, children from migrant backgrounds at disadvantaged schools, who otherwise receive little support, will be included.

In a further step, the scientists want to determine whether they can measure and record the artistic-creative aspect that the children contribute. Finally, they want to determine how the promotion of creativity through dance and movement theater affects the children's motor and cognitive development.

Mainz sports scientist Claudia Steinberg is part of a four-person research group with Martin Stern from Philipps University Marburg, Nils Neuber from Westfälische Wilhelms University Münster and Yvonne Hardt from the Cologne University of Music and Dance. Together they have raised 190,000 euros from the Mercator Foundation to study the development of creativity and personality in more than 250 schoolchildren in Mainz.

Contact: www.sportpaedagogik.uni-mainz.de/dr-claudia-behrens

The award-winning work "In den Steppen von Sápmi" for prepared) choir a cappella will be performed for the first time in Lucerne on Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 11 a.m. in the Culture and Congress Center in a concert by the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart under the direction of Marcus Creed.

Born in Malmö in 1981, Ansgar Beste successfully completed his composition studies at the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar in Michael Obst's class in 2007. At the 6th International Composition Competition of the Christoph Delz Foundation, he won over the jury with an eleven-minute choral piece based on six traditional Sami animal joiks.

The Sámi people live north of the Arctic Circle and have their own traditional songs, known as yoiken. Sápmi is the Sami word for Lapland. Joiken are short melodies that are repeated many times during the performance. 

In addition to Obst, Best's composition teachers include Luca Francesconi (Malmö), Adriana Hölszky (Salzburg), Wolfgang Rihm (Karlsruhe), Hanspeter Kyburz (Berlin) and Beat Furrer (Graz).

Revenue from physical and digital music sales amounted to around 686 million euros at the end of the first half of the year. The growth came primarily from streaming (music streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, Napster and now also Apple Music), which shot up by 87.4 percent and now accounts for 12.8 percent of all sales (H1 2014: 7.7 percent).

The download market in Germany, which has generally come under pressure, also increased by 3.2 percent compared to the previous half year, driven primarily by growth in download albums, according to a press release from the association. This means that the digital business currently accounts for around a third of sales, compared to 26.5% in the first half of 2014.

The vinyl market also continued to develop dynamically: with an increase of almost 33%, it accounted for 3.1% of the overall market. The 3.3% decline in the CD business, on the other hand, corresponds to the decline in the physical market as a whole, but remains moderate in a global comparison.
 

According to the announcement, the international composition competition "Leibniz' Harmonies" focuses on Leibniz's ideas of musical harmony and our relationship to it today. In this way, it will bring science and art into contact with each other and with society worldwide on the occasion of the great anniversaries of the polymath in the coming year.

Some of Leibniz's aphorisms have become an integral part of music aesthetics. For example, he characterized music as a "hidden arithmetical exercise of the mind, which does not know that it is counting". When God calculates and executes the thought, the world comes into being.

The competition is organized by a partner network worldwide in eight languages. The premieres and re-performances will take place in Hanover and Beijing, among other places - by the NDR Radiophilharmonie and Das Neue Ensemble Hannover, as well as the Con Tempo Ensemble Beijing. Patrons are the German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China in Berlin, Shi Mingde.

More info: www.leibnizharmonien.de

In the early music scene, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis is "a driving force that serves as a pioneering example for other institutions", according to the explanatory statement. According to Rema, it is "a unique center that both trains professional musicians in the field of early music and researches historical music practice". In addition, the Schola, whose lecturers and students come from all over the world, organizes numerous public concerts and promotes young ensembles.

The second prize winner, the British vocal quartet The Hilliard Ensemble, has made a significant contribution to the rediscovery and popularization of early music. The ensemble, which existed from 1973 to 2014, focused mainly on music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but also performed contemporary music.

Rema (Réseau Européen de Musique Ancienne) brings together 60 organizations and festivals from 21 countries that specialize in early music. With the Rema Early Music Award, it honors ensembles or institutions that have made a special contribution to the dissemination and research of early music. The Rema is financially supported by the European Commission through the Creative Europe program and the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, among others.
 

According to the call for applications, the PJF is open to ensembles that are at the beginning of an international career and have an excellent track record, i.e. bands that have already made a name for themselves on the Swiss scene and whose aim is to sustainably develop and strengthen their international presence.

Applicants must be established in the current jazz scene and perform regularly in the various language regions of Switzerland. They must have a repertoire of original compositions and have already completed at least two successful international tours. They must have a detailed career plan, be professionally managed and have international distribution for their recordings.

The Swiss Arts Council only accepts applications for "Priority Jazz Funding" online. The deadline for applications is September 1, 2015.

More info: www.myprohelvetia.ch

As part of the budget cuts in the education system, the canton of Schwyz has cut contributions to Schwyz secondary schools. As a result of these cuts, Einsiedeln Abbey School now wants to make its instrumental teachers redundant. All teachers who teach instruments such as piano, violin, trumpet or singing at the grammar school are affected.

In a minor question, Cantonal Councillor Karin Schwiter wanted to know from the Cantonal Government what it thinks of the planned redundancies at Einsiedeln Abbey School.

In its response, the Department of Education writes that the layoffs affect twelve instrumental teachers employed under private law at the Stiftsschule with a total of 200 percent of their workload. More than half of these instrumental teachers are already employed by the Einsiedeln Music School.

All affected teachers have received a guarantee from the Stiftsschule that they will be able to continue working at the Stiftsschule, but with their new employer, the Einsiedeln Music School. As the salaries are different, the affected teachers will have to accept a reduction in salary, according to the Department of Education. It is understandable that such a step would lead to resistance and resentment among those affected. However, the decision to take this step is the sole responsibility of Einsiedeln Abbey School.

The Städtekonferenz Kultur (SKK), of which the city of Chur is a member, has a studio house in Buenos Aires (Argentina) where three artists from different Swiss cities can live and work simultaneously for six months. Together with the SKK, Chur pays a contribution of CHF 10,000 towards the living costs.

The city of Bünder advertised the studio scholarship for the first time in spring 2015. Ten artists applied during the application period.

The city council considered the singer Martina Hug based on the recommendation of the cultural commission, writes the city's media office. Born in 1974, she graduated from the Grisons Teachers' College in Chur. She then studied singing with Jeanne Roth at the Conservatoire de musique de Neuchâtel. In 2004, she was awarded the Canton of Graubünden Prize and in 2010 the City of Chur Prize.
 

Cultural statistics provide an insight into the cultural landscape and highlight changes. They provide a basis for political decisions and highlight the social and economic importance of culture.

With its pocket statistics on culture, the Federal Office of Culture provides concise and clear statistical information on culture and the cultural industries in Switzerland. The brochure is available in the four national languages. It will be published for the second time in 2015 and will be continuously updated.

The FOC presents new statistical data on cultural funding by the communes, cantons and federal government as well as on cultural offerings and audiences in the areas of film and cinema, museums, theaters and libraries.

Download the statistics: www.bak.admin.ch/themen/04110/index.html?lang=de

Ott has been Professor of Composition and Experimental Music Theater at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2005. In 2016, he took over the artistic direction of the Munich Biennale - International Festival for New Music Theater together with Manos Tsangaris.

The Academy of Arts has accepted a total of 13 new members. In the Music Section, these are Philippe Manoury and Helmut Zapf alongside Ott. The following were elected to the Literature Section: Jenny Erpenbeck, Günter Kunert, Reiner Kunze, Marie-Luise Scherer and Kathrin Schmidt. New members of the Performing Arts Section are Boris Charmatz, Mark Lammert, Eva Mattes, Thomas Quasthoff and Krzysztof Warlikowski. The Academy of Arts now has a total of 414 members in its six art sections.