The Winterthur City Council welcomes the fact that the law allows music schools to offer extracurricular music lessons for children, adolescents and young adults up to the age of 25. In principle, the City Council does not question the high quality requirements for music schools.

What the city council finds objectionable about the bill, however, is that the canton sets high quality requirements for the recognition of music schools, but at the same time is only prepared to make a minimal contribution to the costs. In the consultation responses, the municipalities and music schools demanded a cantonal contribution of twenty percent, writes the city of Winterthur. In addition, infrastructure costs were not classified as eligible for a contribution.

The bill stipulates that music schools must guarantee a minimum offer and access to an extended musical offer, have a qualified school management and ensure that music lessons are taught by music school teachers with a university diploma or equivalent training.

The bill also does not do justice to the constitutional mandate to promote gifted pupils, the city council continued. It does state that musical talents and particularly talented pupils should be supported. However, the canton is not prepared to make an appropriate contribution to the costs incurred and to the expenses of the support centers (special music schools).

The City of Winterthur suggests that the canton's share of costs be raised to at least twenty percent during the deliberations by the cantonal parliament and that the passage "infrastructure costs are not considered eligible operating costs" be removed without replacement.

Photo: Machine park of the nail factory in Winterthur. Roland zh/wikimedia commons

According to the University of Bern, 26 doctoral students from the fields of design, dance, conservation and music are currently enrolled on the Bern doctoral program. 16 of them are students or employees of the HKB, ten come from different universities - from Bern to Zurich to Harvard in the USA.

For graduates of universities of applied sciences, access to the three-year doctoral program is via a special Master's course at the university. This one-year course makes it possible to fulfill the formal requirements and make up for deficits in the scientific and methodological area.

The GSA is intended to give new impetus to both research and art and open up new perspectives and fields of research. "Initially, there were prejudices against the GSA - from both sides," explains Beate Hochholdinger-Reiterer, Professor of Theater Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Bern and Deputy Director of the GSA. In the meantime, the skepticism has faded.

The Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF and the Commission for Technology and Innovation CTI have also become aware of the hybrid model: The GSA has already acquired third-party funding of four million Swiss francs.

Kathleen McNurney will remain Artistic Director of the "Tanz Luzerner Theater" company. Brigitte Heusinger, currently Opera Director at the Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, will manage the music theater division together with Benedikt von Peter and assist him in artistic matters as Deputy Director.

Kathleen McNurney has led the "Tanz Luzerner Theater" company since the beginning of the 2009/10 season and can thus continue her development work. According to the theater's press release, she has brought both renowned choreographers and up-and-coming talents to the Lucerne Theater and shown audiences a variety of contemporary dance languages.

Brigitte Heusinger from Hamburg was an opera dramaturge at Theater Basel from 2006 to 2012. There she worked with Christoph Marthaler, Hans Neuenfels and Philipp Stölzl, among others. She has been opera director at the Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken since 2012.

The 6th International Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition took place from February 28 to March 4. Following a pre-selection process, a total of seven string trios and six string quartets from all over the world took part in the competition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In the string quartet category, the Pacific Quartet Vienna and the Abel Quartet were each awarded first prize. In addition, the Pacific Quartet Vienna won further prizes, namely the prize for the best interpretation of a composition by Joseph Haydn and the audience prize in the string quartet category.

The Pacific Quartet Vienna was founded in November 2006. In addition to its concert activities, it promotes cultural exchange between Japan and Austria and Switzerland respectively. Here, for example, it will be performing on March 27 at 7.30 pm in the Lavatersaal in Zurich or on June 3 as part of the Dachkammer concerts in the Violin making school Brienz.
 

In 1996, Jenny established the Gartenflügel Foundation to promote (inter)cultural issues, according to the press release from the canton of Glarus. With the foundation, he provides decisive impetus to cultural life in the Glarus region, supports cultural exchange and also promotes projects in Nepal, a country to which he is particularly attached. The centerpiece and flagship of the foundation is the Gartenflügel gallery on the family's factory premises in Ziegelbrücke.

The Glarus Culture Prize, endowed with CHF 20,000, is awarded every two years. The last winner was the actor Herbert Leiser from Obstalden.

The Braunwald Music Week has been held once a year since 1936. The event, which was founded on the initiative of Nelly Schmid and Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez, began with lectures. National and international artists played the examples requested by the speakers to demonstrate their explanations.

A novelty is the excursion introduced by Robert Jenny, called the school trip, down into the Linth valley. The participants explore the surrounding area, and there are concert opportunities in completely unfamiliar places.

In the February issue of in unisonthe organ of the Swiss Wind Music Association (SBV), Tobias Kühn notes that brass bands are finding it increasingly difficult to fill their clarinet registers. There are probably two main reasons for this: the clarinet does not play a leading role in pop music. In addition, the clarinet is a mass instrument: it takes many clarinettists to achieve a balanced sound in the register.

With the Year of the clarinet the SBC is now putting the instrument center stage and coordinating concerts on its website that specifically highlight the clarinet. So far, for example, the Town music Huttwil at their annual concerts the piece Divertimento Criminale for eight clarinets and wind orchestra by Urs Heri was premiered.
In addition to many other concerts, a special one will take place on May 14: The Lucerne Youth Wind Orchestra in cooperation with the Swiss Clarinet Society and the Music School of the City of Lucerne clarinettists from all over Switzerland were invited to the KKL stage in Lucerne.
More concerts can be registered for publication at any time. Any SBC club that announces its event by May 31 will automatically take part in a competition for the most original clarinet project.

Recently the Clarinet bus equipped with various instruments from the clarinet family as well as documentation and promotional material. The bus and driver can be hired for concerts, public and music school events for a fee of CHF 100.

With Flash mobs voll krass" will not only conquer public ground with clarinets, but also social media. Anyone who posts a video of their clarinet flash mob on YouTube by mid-November will be entered into a competition.

Finally, the SBC has a Bibliography and three Commissioned compositions awarded to Franco Cesarini, Christoph Walter and Mario Bürki. These works will be premiered in the course of the clarinet year.
 

There are around 150 theaters in Germany. Most of these were built or rebuilt between 1820 and 1970. The need for refurbishment and energy optimization is correspondingly great. To date, there has been no benchmarking for theaters that would allow them to position themselves in terms of energy and identify particularly energy-intensive areas.

This gap is being closed by the research project "Cross-sectional energy survey of German theater venues and monitoring of the opera and playhouse with a focus on comfort studies" at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

For the cross-sectional analysis, data on economic efficiency, user satisfaction and consumption data such as electricity, heating, cooling, air conveyance, lighting and water will initially be collected. In addition, audience surveys are planned as well as short-term measurements with measuring dummies - artificial figures with integrated measuring systems for air quality and air flow, humidity and temperature.

In a transition class at the Von-der-Tann-Schule in Regensburg, children familiarize themselves with German, a language that is foreign to them, with the help of music. Their natural sense of tone and beat helps them to do this. According to class teacher Eva Nagel, the children understand grammatical structures through singing. There are 19 children from 14 countries in the class. They come from all social classes. Children of foreign professors who work in Regensburg sit alongside refugee children from war zones.

The targeted use of music helps to reduce inhibitions in the use of language and to train linguistic patterns in a relaxed manner, explains music education professor Magnus Gaul. Music in combination with facial expressions and gestures opens up access to a new language. Added to this is the passion shown by children and teachers in the transition classes. According to the German newspaper Neue Musikzeitung, he is so convinced of the cooperation that some of his students will accompany the lessons in the transition class in April.

Magnus Gaul's work focuses on the field of empirical music education research. He is particularly interested in the musical lives and experiences of children and young people, their music-related identity and the integration of all children in general education classes. He also devotes himself to various music education projects involving professional musicians.
 

Born in Canada in 1985, cellist David Eggert studied in Boston, Montreal, Salzburg and Basel with Tanya Prochazka, Laurence Lesser, Matt Haimovitz, Clemens Hagen and Rainer Schmidt, among others. He is the successor to Louise Hopkins.

The Italian bassoonist, conductor and composer Daniele Galaverna takes over the teaching of Lyndon Watts. He studied at the Parma Conservatory and at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, where he graduated with highest honors as a soloist. From 1994 to 2004 he was principal bassoon with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. He has been principal bassoon with the Musikkollegium Winterthur since 2005.

Born in China, Tianwa Yang was the world's youngest performer of Paganini's 24 Caprices at the age of thirteen and was considered the "pride of China" in her home country. She came to Germany on a DAAD special scholarship in 2003 at the age of sixteen. In 2014, she won the Echo Klassik Award for Young Artist 2014 and the German Record Critics' Award of the Year. She has been a lecturer at the Kassel Music Academy since 2012. In Bern, she succeeds Barbara Doll.

Fürrer, now 42, studied journalism, European ethnology and economic and social history and, according to the canton's press release, has ten years of professional experience as a primary school teacher and six years of administrative experience at federal level, including three years as deputy to the Swiss defense attaché at the Swiss embassy in Washington D. C.

Born in Zug, he has been employed by the Canton of Zug since 2012 and initially worked as Deputy Head of the Office for Secondary Schools and Teacher Training College. Since March 2014, he has held the position of Deputy Secretary General of the Directorate of Education and Culture. He will take up his new post on August 1, 2015.

From 2017, cultural institutions of regional importance in the canton of Bern will be jointly financed by the local municipality, the canton and all municipalities in the respective region. In the Bernese Oberland, this new financing model is to be organized according to the four existing administrative districts of Interlaken-Oberhasli (Oberland-Ost regional conference), Thun, Frutigen-Niedersimmental and Obersimmental-Saanen.

The following institutions are proposed for joint financing in the four administrative districts:

• Oberland East region: Kunsthaus Interlaken, Interlaken Classics, Meiringen Music Festival, Brienz Woodcarving Foundation (with woodcarving symposium)
• Thun region: Thun Museum Castle, Thun Art Museum, Thun City Library, Thun Art Society, Thun Castle Concerts, Museum in Oberhofen Castle
• Frutigen-Niedersimmental region: Spiez Library, Spiez Castle Museum, Swiss Chamber Music Festival Adelboden, Agensteinhaus Erlenbach
• Obersimmental-Saanen region: Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Sommets Musicaux Gstaad, Jazz Tage Lenk

The list of these institutions must be approved by the Government Council following the consultation. A service agreement is then negotiated with each institution, which must be approved by the institution and the future financing partners. These three partners are the respective local municipality, the Oberland-Ost regional conference or the municipal associations yet to be formed for the other three regions, as well as the Canton of Bern.

From January 1, 2017, the Canton of Bern will contribute 40% of the operating costs of these institutions. The remaining 60% will be shared by the local municipalities and all municipalities in the respective region according to a distribution formula to be negotiated.
 

The title Delaram is Persian and is made up of "del" for heart and "aram" for calm. Alfred Felder (*1950 in Lucerne) has repeatedly studied texts by the Persian-Islamic mystic Jelaluddin Rumi - from the oratorio âtesh, the violin concerto open secret to the work for baritone, choir and orchestra Khamushwhich was premiered at the Tonhalle Zurich in 2012. This is a new version that transforms the work from oratorio to symphony. Delaramwhich was commissioned by the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt. The new work dispenses with the choir; what remains is the text, its setting and visualization by the solo voice and the intention of the whole as a requiem without Dies irae and without death as a vision of horror.

The word "visualization" has been carefully chosen and is problematic at the same time. "Look at me! I am your companion in the grave!" This is how Rumi's Ghasel 491 begins - in the composer's translation. The baritone voice makes the call of God resound sonorously and his greeting "salam" is underlined by the orchestra with a full, radiant sound. Robert Koller, the baritone at the world premiere on Friday, February 13, 2015, fills out this grand gesture admirably with his pithy, warm voice. And when the soloist even conjures up the "intoxication of love" in the grave and the music begins to circle in a frenzy, he appears as a figure on the podium with an almost operatic vitality.

Almost: because everything is actually quite different. Not only with the admonition "Do not seek me in human form!" does Felder's music have its own specific weight, despite all its colourfulness, violent outbursts and rhythmic energy: this voice sounds dematerialized, mystical. Although very present and surrounded by the sensual sound of the orchestra, it is - how does the composer manage this? - a voice from the other side. Koller has the wide-ranging, touching vocal possibilities for this: the quietly held low, mysterious tones, the ethereal falsetto in "Oh strange night!".

But the instrumental events are also imbued with a "knowledge" that would be mere assertion in the text alone. What would the verse "Never were you apart from me!" be without the bassoon solo? The orchestral means at Felder's disposal are extremely varied. Lyrically monologuing solos and spherical sounds are just as much a part of it as powerful clusters of sound, complex rhythms and passages of dissolving cohesion. Conductor Zsolt Hamar was obviously the right man for the "calm heart" that emerges at the end as the quintessence of the experience negotiated in Ghasel, with his calm competence and clear gestures that were to a certain extent inviting to the musicians.

The fact that the Brandenburg State Orchestra is an orchestra of independent expressiveness was also evident in the two works that framed the premiere. The motto of the program was "Music and Transcendence". The Sinfonia sacra by the Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991) at the beginning of the concert naturally fitted in with this theme, as did the work by the Russian Alexander Scriabin. Scriabin's Symphony No. 2 was already related to his idea of an art-religious Gesamtkunstwerk, a "mystery", which was to be performed in seven consecutive days in the Himalayas and which he believed would transform humanity. Exciting references and contrasts arose not only thematically, but also in the purely musical circumstances, and the clever concept was followed by the realization, which, under Hamar's energetic and enthusiastic direction, led figuratively speaking to the Himalayas with the finale of the Scriabin Symphony.

More from Herbert Büttiker on Felder's works on: www.roccosound.ch
 

According to the city's official announcement, the appointment of an external project manager to evaluate the Oxer project and the development of an operating concept for the future theater is planned for the current year. The summer performances in the Alte Reithalle between April and September will continue.

Clarifications regarding a new location for the cantonal lighthouse KiFF are to be initiated. The cultural institutions of cantonal importance are to be maintained through closer cooperation and improved infrastructure services. Outreach work is to be optimized for all cultural institutions.

This year, the Culture Commission has been tasked with reviewing and revising the guidelines for cultural promotion in line with the cultural concept. The creation of focal points, the strengthening of festival projects and the simplification of approval procedures are topics that will be examined in more detail in this context.

The need for production, event, studio and storage space in Aarau is unbroken, the city writes further. This need is to be met with a corresponding tool that includes the accessible (initially municipal) spaces and allows them to be reserved easily. The conception and implementation is to take place this year. In addition, structures and processes in the cultural sector are to be optimized.

Today, the document is the only one that provides information about Bach's condition after the eye operation by the English oculist John Taylor in April 1750. The receipt is evidence of the last verifiable official act of the Thomaskantor. At the beginning of July 1750, Bach instructed his youngest son, the almost 15-year-old Johann Christian, to receive and acknowledge the annual payment from the "Legatum Lobwasserianum". The composer died in the same month.

The "Legatum Lobwasserianum" goes back to a donation of 1000 guilders by the pious Leipzig lawyer widow Maria Lobwasser († 28. 4. 1610). The annual interest income from this capital of 50 guilders was intended to support the church and school servants at St. Thomas', with the cantor, the rector and the tertius of St. Thomas' School each receiving 2 guilders. This corresponds roughly to the average weekly wage of an organist in Bach's time. At the request of the deceased, the payment was made on the day of the Annunciation, July 2.

In December 2014, the lower half of the leaf (with the receipt from 1750) appeared at a Swann's auction in New York. The documentation revealed that at least this fragment had previously been in the possession of the famous harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (1879-1959). The receipt will be on public display for the first time during the Leipzig Bach Festival, which takes place from June 12 to 21, 2015, in the treasury of the Bach Museum Leipzig.

The authors of the petition write that the exhibition, which is visited by around 80,000 people every year, should largely disappear from the premises of the Bel Étage of the Neue Burg to make way for the future Haus der Geschichte. The Collection of Historic Musical Instruments (SAM) is one of the most important European collections of historic musical instruments and an indispensable part of the documentation of Austrian music history.

The petition demands, among other things:

"The collection of old musical instruments must remain in its current location without restriction.

The destruction of the perfectly functioning exhibition is a pure waste of money that should be avoided in the interests of all taxpayers.

The long-term closure that threatens the SAM after the current exhibition rooms are vacated because there is no budget in sight for the new facilities must be avoided."

Link to further details and to sign the petition: Website