The 2014 Migros Culture Percentage instrumental music competition took place in Zurich from December 2 to 4. Of the 46 admitted candidates, 12 convinced the international jury and received CHF 14,400 each.

The "Migros Culture Percentage Soloist" award, including the study prize and inclusion in the Migros Culture Percentage concert agency, went to the Bernese recorder player Laura Schmid.

The concert was awarded a study prize and included in the Migros Culture Percentage concert program:
* Céline Pasche, recorder, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne
* Yang Wu, piano, Basel
* Lisa Wyss, saxophone, Langnau i. E.

The winners of the study awards are:
* Lionel Andrey, clarinet, Lausanne
* Sebastian Braun, violoncello, Winterthur
* Ivo Dudler, Horn, Steinach SG
* Héléna Macherel, flute, Pully
* Giulia Ott, harp, Basel
* Anton Spronk, violoncello, Zurich
* Anna Tuena, percussion, Geneva
* Lora-Evelin Vakova-Tarara, piano/chamber music, Zurich

The jury was made up of: Oliver Schnyder (jury chairman), pianist; Michael Eidenbenz, Director of the Department of Music at the Zurich University of the Arts; Mischa Damev, Head of Music, Directorate of Culture and Social Affairs, Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund; Esther Hoppe, violinist; Reto Bieri, clarinettist, Director of the Davos Festival.

The Migros Culture Percentage has been promoting young Swiss artists since 1969. It awards study and sponsorship prizes as part of national talent competitions. The study prizes are endowed with CHF 14,400 each. Exceptionally talented study prize winners receive sponsorship awards. These include long-term, individual support measures such as performance opportunities, coaching and promotion. The competitions take place annually in the following categories: Movement theater, singing, instrumental music, chamber music (triennial), acting and dance.
To date, around 2,850 promising talents have been supported with a total of CHF 38 million and accompanied on their way from education to a career with comprehensive support measures. On its online talent platform, Migros Culture Percentage presents outstanding talents with their biographies, pictures and audio samples.

Talent competitions: www.migros-kulturprozent.ch/talentwettbewerbe
Online talent platform: www.migros-kulturprozent.ch/talente
 

The call for applications is open to Swiss citizens and persons resident in Switzerland or applicants with proven links to Swiss cultural or scientific institutions. The age limit is forty years at the end of the application period.

The duration of the stay is usually between four and ten months (between October and July). The members receive board and lodging as well as a job. Applicants must apply for funding for other living expenses themselves. Those who have not received funding despite demonstrable efforts receive a grant of CHF 1500 per month. Active participation in the Studio Roma studio is an integral part of the residency conditions. Applications can be submitted by February 9, 2015 at the latest.

More info: www.istitutosvizzero.it
 

In a brief communiqué, the canton also writes that Jann resigned from his position within the probationary period. He had been head of cantonal cultural promotion since September 1, 2014.

The reasons for the withdrawal were "in addition to the different views on the role of the cultural commissioner, in particular the existing scope for action in cantonal cultural promotion". The position will be advertised at the beginning of 2015.

In addition to the winner Vojin Kocić, this year's finalists were the Italian soprano Alice Rossi, the Moldovan violinist Alexandra Conunova and the Belgian pianist Florian Noack.

Kocić studies at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). The prize, which is awarded every two years to a highly talented young musician, is endowed with CHF 25,000 and also includes the opportunity to perform at the Lucerne Festival in the summer as part of the Debut series. Vojin Kocić's concert is scheduled for August 20, 2015.

The Prix Credit Suisse Jeunes Solistes, which has been awarded since 2001, is an initiative of the Lucerne Festival, the Konferenz Musikhochschulen Schweiz (KMHS) and the Credit Suisse Foundation.
 

Cantars 2015 brings together sacred music, cultural exchange, cabaret, readings, encounters and much more in 13 cantons. The program includes a total of around 440 events over 36 days in the cantons of Aargau, Basel, Bern, Fribourg, Graubünden, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Valais and Zurich. The final event will take place on June 7 in St. Gallen.

Throughout Switzerland, amateurs and professionals, vocal ensembles, church choirs, concert choirs, instrumental ensembles, children's choirs, authors, gospel choirs, slam poets, singers, musicians, artists and cultural workers prepare for their performance. They are backed by around 50 church music and church associations, organizations and institutions. They are locally responsible for the program and implementation at the 36 venues.

Around 100,000 visitors are expected to attend. The overall organizer of this major church cultural event is the Swiss Catholic Church Music Association SKMV in close cooperation with the Swiss Church Choral Federation SKGB. The 36 local organizing committees are supported by a national organizing committee.

More info: www.cantars.org
 

The musicologist Ralph-Jürgen Reipsch, an employee of the Center for Telemann Care and Research in Magdeburg, has published the discovery as well as a previously unknown German-French biography in the current issue of the journal Music research published.

Telemann's text, which was written around 1738, could be an independent but rejected version for Johann Mattheson's Musikerlexikon Basis of an honorary gate (1740). Telemann describes the circumstances of his life in the four-page manuscript under the five headings "Parents", "Education", "Studies", "Music" and "Positions of Honor".

Under the heading "Parents", he devotes himself primarily to his mother, from whom he derives his musicality. Her decision to give the extremely talented boy an education beyond music at schools in Zellerfeld and Hildesheim and to allow him to study law in Leipzig testifies to the wisdom of this educated and pious woman, who found herself in poor financial circumstances following the early death of her husband (1685), the Holy Spirit preacher Heinrich Telemann.

The text is also remarkable due to the fact that it is a working sketch from which all phases of composition can still be seen: Numerous deletions, overwritings and additions show how Telemann searched for formulations and how he strove to organize the biographical focal points in a meaningful way. This document thus allows us at least to some extent to approach the author's thinking and deliberations.

Telemann's new biography ends in the section "Positions of Honor" with an unfortunately much too brief description of his extremely successful trip to Paris in 1737/38, which was undoubtedly a highlight of his musical life and from which he returned "completely delighted".

The second German-French biography mentioned at the beginning is likely to be a corrected, streamlined and linguistically revised new version of the first bilingual biography from 1744, which was produced around 1746 in connection with Telemann's printed cantata volume "Musicalisches Lob Gottes" (Nuremberg 1744). Numerous correction marks identify the single leaf printed on both sides as a galley proof from the correspondence with the Nuremberg publisher Balthasar Schmidt. Apparently, however, this biographical text did not receive any further distribution.
 

The aim of the competition, which is based in Nashville (USA), is to discover and promote outstanding soloists or bands.

There are no age limits and it is recommended to submit songs in different categories. This year, a new category was introduced with "Screen Shot", in which music for film, television, advertising and video games is awarded. The following categories have been announced for 2015: AAA (Adult Album Alternative), AC (Adult Contemporary), Americana, Christian, Country, Folk/Singer-Songwriter, R&B/Hip-Hop, Rock, Pop/Top 40, Teen (for artists 18 years old and younger), Vocal Performance, Screen Shot.

On the website www.unsignedonly.com you can listen to the songs of this year's award winners. Most of them come from the USA and Canada. However, the competition has a decidedly international focus. The participants are notified of their success, but the jury does not provide any actual feedback.

Songs can be submitted for the next round of the competition until March 18, 2015. Further information about the jury, submission procedure and rules can be found in English on the website www.unsignedonly.com. The rights to the submitted songs remain with the artists.
 

For their Germany-wide representative study, the DIW researchers analyzed the data collected between 2001 and 2012 from almost 4,000 young people. In their calculations, the researchers focused on 17-year-olds who had been playing music since the age of eight. 

In their analyses, the researchers were able to prove that there is a direct correlation between music lessons at a young age and better educational success, according to the press release. The correlation remains even if numerous characteristics of the parents are statistically taken into account, such as their level of education and income. The educational success of young people who play music can only partly be explained by their parents' homes. (cf)

Link to the study:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775714000995

The cantonal government and the municipal council of Neuhausen am Rheinfall have concluded service agreements with the Rhine Falls Festival and the Cinévox Junior Company. The Rheinfall Festival, which takes place every two years, includes the Rhine Falls as a backdrop and offers a combination of several disciplines (literature, theater/dance and art). The canton's financial contribution amounts to CHF 45,000 per festival.

The performance agreement with the Rheinfall Festival is valid from 2015 to 2017. The performance agreement with the Cinévox Junior Company, which offers professional ballet dancers from all over the world one to two years of additional training, was also concluded for the years 2015 to 2017. The canton's annual contribution amounts to CHF 50,000 and is earmarked in particular for the annual Swiss tour and for educational projects for the benefit of Schaffhausen schools and institutions.

In addition, the Government Council has also worked with Stars in Town (www.starsintown.ch) concluded a performance agreement. As before, the canton's contributions will be used in particular to promote up-and-coming bands from the Schaffhausen region and the Family Festival. The canton's financial contributions are degressive, ranging from CHF 75,000 in 2015 to CHF 50,000 in 2017. In addition, a deficit guarantee of a maximum of CHF 50,000 is provided for the risk of bad weather.

Finally, the Government Council and the Schaffhausen City Council approved the renewal of the service agreement with the Kumpane association (www.kumpane.ch) was approved. The financial contributions from the canton and city of Schaffhausen remain unchanged. The service agreement with the Kumpane association is now valid from 2015 to 2018.

The four performance agreements are subject to a legally binding budget for 2015.
 

On October 21, 2014, the new program areas at the "Focus on Science and Art" (a cooperation between the University of Salzburg and the Mozarteum University Salzburg) were officially opened at the Kunstquartier Salzburg.

In addition to "Contemporary Art and Cultural Production" and "Art Polemics - Polemical Art", the new program area "ConTempOhr. Mediating contemporary music" was also launched. The programme area aims to provide new impetus for contemporary music in Salzburg, among other things by researching and developing new mediation projects as well as training and professionalizing future music mediators. ConTempOhr now has three years to develop into an international platform. Artistic practice and academic research are to enter into synergies.

Martin Losert (saxophone, deputy director of ConTempOhr) played a free improvisation with Jörg Schweinbenz (piano) at the opening ceremony, which lasted almost two hours. Simone Heilgendorff (viola, director of ConTempOhr) performed compositions by Xiaoyeng Chen and Julio Estrada with her colleagues from the Kairos Quartet (Berlin).

As part of the new cooperative study focus "Arts and Public Spheres", ConTempOhr is offering relevant courses this winter semester, e.g. on experimental music concepts. ConTempOhr also organizes workshops. In February, the conference of the Platform Music Education Austria (PMÖ), the first national cooperation took place.

www.w-k.sbg.ac.at/vermittlung-zeitgenoessischer-musik

A long-awaited new edition in the music world has just been published by Musikverlag
Hug published: the first critical edition of the opera Penthesilea (1927) by Othmar Schoeck. Perhaps the most important stage work by the Swiss composer (1886-1957) has so far always been performed on the basis of a score with numerous flaws. The Swiss musicologist Beat Föllmi, professor at the University of Strasbourg and long-time director of the Othmar Schoeck Complete Edition, which is published on behalf of the Othmar Schoeck Society (OSG), has now painstakingly compiled a fully corrected version and eliminated hundreds of errors, some of which are serious. The new edition follows the composer's intentions as closely as possible and thus makes a central work in Schoeck's oeuvre accessible for the stage and for scholars in a modern edition.

With the publication of this important volume, the complete edition of Othmar Schoeck's works has unfortunately come to a premature conclusion. Despite intensive efforts, the OSG as the sponsor of the complete edition has not succeeded in providing the necessary funds for its continuation. The complete edition was begun in 1988 and 11 volumes (in 17 parts) have been published to date, including the majority of the operas, the early songs, the choral works, the piano works and the complete orchestral works including the concertos. The OSG continues to exist as a society.

Othmar Schoeck, Complete Works, Series III: Volume 14 (A+B), Penthesilea, edited by Beat A. Föllmi on behalf of the Othmar Schoeck Society, score, 2 volumes fully bound, Fr. 288.00, Hug Musikverlage, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-906415-24-6

Since July 2003, the cantons of Central Switzerland (including Glarus and excluding Zug, which has its own studio in Berlin) have been offering artists from various disciplines the opportunity to spend four months in Berlin-Mitte. The grant includes free use of the apartment and a monthly living allowance. The studio apartments are made available to the cantons of Central Switzerland by the Landis & Gyr Foundation at low cost.

One of the scholarship holders is Dominik Wyss, who was born in 1956 in Triengen, Lucerne. After graduating from the Kollegi in Stans, he studied musicology and German at the University of Zurich. He has worked as a teacher at the Kollegi in Stans since 1983, where he also supervises the choir and orchestra. He regularly works on compositions, especially for the theater. His compositions have been performed several times, and in 1997 he was awarded the Schindler Cultural Foundation Recognition Prize. He would like to use his stay in Berlin to work on a new composition which - without theater or film images - attempts to depict life in the big city.

As the Federal Association of German Choral Associations announced today, there are around 60,000 amateur choirs in Germany with over two million singers. As part of the UNESCO convention, they have now received a special honor. "Choral music in German amateur choirs" made it onto the nationwide list in the first round from a total of 83 proposals.

According to the press release, the experts recognize the choral tradition as a cultural form that is "deeply rooted in the heart of society. The creative appropriation of text and music as well as the artistic vitality of people are mobilized through the activity of choirs. At the same time, the practice of singing focuses on identity-forming commonalities and public activities. Cultural tradition, social awakening and lively commitment intertwine in the cultivation of choral music in German amateur choirs. They represent the core of musical tradition, musical life and the cultivation of music in Germany."

In addition, the Saxon boys' choirs, the singing of songs of the German workers' movement and the German theater and orchestra landscape were included in the national directory.

In Switzerland, the Federal Council adopted the first periodic report on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage in Switzerland on November 28. In today's press release, the Federal Office of Culture writes that the interim results are positive and that the report will be submitted to UNESCO today. In October, the Yodeling as one of the eight candidacies proposed.
 

Five political parties, ten cultural institutions and interest groups, eight departments or institutions of the city of Aarau and eight individuals took part in the consultation process, writes the city. Various inputs were incorporated into the concept, which has now been finalized with slight adjustments by the city council.

The concept defines the framework for cultural policy activities in the coming years. It is openly formulated and leaves the concrete form of the initiatives to future implementation.

It also contains no specifications regarding finances or other resources. The city admits that this was sometimes described as a shortcoming in the consultation process, but it is an essential part of the concept. The upcoming implementation steps should now offer the opportunity for the participation of cultural professionals and the population. An implementation plan will be drawn up by spring, which will then contain the concrete steps for the next legislative period.

Download: www.aarau.ch/kultur
 

Youth centers are important meeting places, and music plays a central role in them, writes Thomas Gartmann, Head of Research at Bern University of the Arts (HKB). It was this fact that led to the creation of this project: Everything that sounds has "a physical origin and consists of a more or less malleable 'matter' that can be influenced, changed and alienated, but also visualized - and created itself". Barbara Balba Weber is a lecturer in artistic music education at the HKB.

As part of the project, young people are to be approached about the technical and physical side of music and music-making. To this end, workshops with musicians, researchers and technicians will be held in small groups in youth centers - such as Kofmehl Solothurn or Kiff Aarau - before concerts. The results of the workshops are presented to the audience in the form of a pre-concert or a science show before the actual concert begins.

The collaboration between Science et Cité, the association infoklick.ch - Kinder- und Jugendförderung Schweiz, the association tüfteln.ch and the Bern University of the Arts opens up various approaches to ensure the implementation of the project, Gartmann continued.