Stephan Zebe writes in the foreword to Glory to God! - Gospel liturgical"When gospel choir and Sunday congregation meet, two worlds usually collide. That should change." Numerous composers have contributed to this groundbreaking work. The songs form a diverse, practice-oriented mixture of gospel, pop and new spiritual song.

The score contains no fewer than 94 arrangements. The volume is divided into the opening, Psalms, Gloria, Kyrie, Hallelujah, Credo, Sanctus, Our Father, Agnus Dei, Thanksgiving and Mission and Benediction. The people of the church have also been included by including four hymns from the church hymnal.

The Kyrie is represented by eight different versions. New chants are not neglected either. The people respond to the Kyrie calls with "Lord and God have mercy". There is also a German opening hymn: May the Lord be here. The Gloria section also features German chants: Glory be to the Father and the Son, honor and glory and Glory to God in the highest. This is followed by 14 hallelujah versions. The Our Father is also represented. As closing songs we find Graciously grant us peace and seven amen versions. Numerous English songs are also accompanied by German lyrics.

In the table of contents we find a breakdown according to various themes: Mourning and consolation, calls to prayer, confirmation, confirmation, wedding, communion and communion, Word of God, Advent, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and Trinity. Reference is also made to the a cappella versions and the canons. The German-language hymns are specifically listed, also alphabetically with details of the composer. The score includes piano accompaniments for all the hymns. For the choir there is a smaller edition in A5 format without instrumental accompaniments.

It is a very successful edition, suitable for all times of the church year and for special occasions, which offers new listening experiences.

Glory to God! - Gospel liturgisch, edited by Stephan Zebe, score, ZE 3083, € 19.90; vocal edition, ZE 3084, from € 6.90; ZebeMusic, Berlin 2014

"... my whole life so far [has] been characterized by this miracle of sound that we call music. I have been a musician with every nerve, with every drop of blood ..." Hilber wrote this in 1963, shortly after completing his last composition, the Missa a cappella Vox clamantis in deserto. His own personal desert was a hearing loss that had begun at a young age and had steadily worsened.

Despite this, Hilber created a rich oeuvre and became famous above all for his church music (widely known as the Missa pro Patria) was known beyond the country's borders. Born in Wil in 1891, he worked in Lucerne from the 1920s until his death in 1973. In addition to his work as a composer, he was also an important teacher: among other things, he founded the Catholic Church Music School in Lucerne (now part of the University of Music) and headed it until 1967, was director of the Lucerne choral societies and co-editor of musical magazines. He was the recipient of numerous honorary titles and prizes, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Fribourg.

From 1934 onwards, Hilber found an ideal field of activity as the collegiate choirmaster at the Hofkirche St. Leodegar in Lucerne. The CD was recorded in this very church. Stephen Smith expanded his professional ensemble with ten professional musicians and five selected amateurs (a successful experiment!) to form the choir that the composer must have had in mind. The congenial titulaire Wolfgang Sieber made colorful and always supportive use of his organ, as did the soloists Gabriela Bürgler and Anne Montandon and the soloists Ross Buddie and Marcus Niedermeyr.

Hilber's late-romantic sound world is agogically and dynamically rich in nuances; this wonderful CD will hopefully unfold its effect in many emulating choirs.

Patricia Pagny, piano professor at the Bern University of the Arts, is the initiator of the "Tasti'Era" project, which aims to breathe new life into the classical music scene through interdisciplinarity. Her declared aim is to make musical performances attractive, versatile and appealing to audiences by combining them with other arts. So far, however, only two CDs have emerged as a tangible result and calling card, which, despite their respectable quality, can hardly be described as ground-breaking. Pagny's piano class performs two well-rounded programs, but they do not stand out from the usual themed CDs.

Based on the strong influence of Japanese painting on French artists at the end of the 19th century, the class on the CD Entre la France et le Japon in search of something comparable in music. In fact, a convincing juxtaposition is achieved through an apt choice of pieces. Toshio Akaishi and Toru Takemitsu provide an insight into Japanese compositional culture, and through more or less well-known French representatives from Maurice Ravel to Jean-Jacques Werner, differences, but also far-reaching similarities, soon become clear. The mostly atmospheric, floating works are primarily distinguished from one another by their different sound structures, which can be traced back to the different cultures. The Prelude La Puerta del Vino by Claude Debussy, with its strong Spanish influences, stands out due to its very beautiful but thematically inappropriate sound world. Three first recordings, Jean-Jacques Werner's Madigan SquareToshio Akaishi's A Heavy Cloud Drips in the North Winter's Sky and The blue moon is rising from beyond a mountain ridgeThe compositional finesse and individuality of Akaishi's works can be found in some expressive and colorful impressionistic elements. The interpreters are convincing and do justice to the works; in addition to Patricia Pagny herself, who stands out qualitatively as a mentor, Mrika Sefa deserves special mention, who plays Poulenc's Improvisation XIII and Takemitsus Song of love offers.

Entre la France et le Japon, un sentiment de parfaite harmonie, works by Messiaen, Akaishi, Ravel, Takemitsu and others.

Video examples:

Tanja Biderman plays Toru Takemitsu: Litany II in Memory of Michael Vyner
Aimi Sugo plays Toshio Akaishi: A Heavy Cloud Drips in the North Winter's Sky
Zarja Vatovec plays Jean-Jacques Werner: Madigan Square

In the second CD Bern-Thun-Interlaken, véritable source d'inspiration the game of associations continues, albeit quite loosely. Although the four closely connected composers (the Schumann couple, Brahms and Mendelssohn) all knew and appreciated the area in question, only one of the recorded works was actually written here: Three fantasy pieces op. 111 by Schumann. Tanja Biderman opens the recording with the very intelligently chosen Toccata op. 7 by Robert Schumann, a piece that is so difficult that few pianists can or want to include it in their repertoire. It is mastered surprisingly confidently and with relievingly little emphasis on technique, which is also evident in Mendelssohn's Variations sérieuses and Brahms' Intermezzo op. 118 No. 6 does not change. The fact that immediately afterwards the Intermezzi op. 117 by Brahms, played by Tomomi Hori, shows exactly the differences between the two pianists. While Biderman performs Brahms expansively, with a lot of rubato and pathos, Hori does not allow herself many liberties, playing almost woodenly at times. Such divergent interpretations become more apparent in the course of the CD. Nevertheless, the overall quality remains very high, with particular praise for the conception of a rounded sound and the noticeable focus on the internal logic of the compositions, which, despite all the differences, never slips into the arbitrary.

An unusual compilation: Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, two established Russians, and Hermann Goetz, Martin Wendel and Alfred Felder, three little-known Swiss composers. Hermann Goetz (1840-1876) was a pupil of Hans von Bülow. He moved to Winterthur at the age of 23. He worked as an organist at the town church there, but also found time to compose his Loose leaves to compose. They are small romantic character pieces á la Dances of David by Robert Schumann; and Goetz dedicated it to Schumann's Clara, but she did not include it in her concert programs. She must have had her reasons. One could be that the pieces are not on the same level as those of her husband. They are pretty, these Loose leaves of the little master Goetz. But unfortunately without any surprise or depth.

The double CD gets going As if in flight only with the second album. Luisa Splett shows herself in the 2013 memoir - following a trace of my memory as a sensitive and empathetic pianist who breathes both life and credibility into the personal pieces of Alfred Felder, who was born in Lucerne in 1950. Luisa Splett, who comes from Winterthur, has gained a wealth of experience. She honed her skills at the renowned Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, which are particularly evident in Sergei Prokofiev's rarely performed Aphorisms Visions fugitives op. 22 and the much better known Flight of the bumblebee Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's.

Unfortunately, the booklet and the graphic design give the deliberately personal and committed crowdfunding production a bizarre touch. The picture of the young lady Splett with an umbrella on a grand piano flying between the clouds (the title is "Wie im Fluge") certainly doesn't do the music justice.

The wooden wagon was built at the beginning of 2014 on the joint initiative of the LSO and the Drosos Foundation with the aim of offering classical music outside the cultural center of the city of Lucerne and the KKL Luzern and bringing musical discoveries and activities to the villages and towns of Central Switzerland. The car serves as a traveling stage and becomes a listening room and meeting place.

In the workshops, school classes become composers and musicians themselves under the guidance of artists. Since the opening of the music van in June 2014, the mobile concert stage has already been to the Seetal Cantonal School, Hasle School, the Rhaetia Lucerne Institute, the Montessori School in Lucerne and the Children's Culture Festival in Kriens. Pupils were instructed to consciously listen to sounds and noises in the environment and in music. Each project week ended with a public concert.

The Migros Culture Percentage's Central Switzerland Promotion Prize is awarded to cultural institutions and creative artists who "enrich the cultural world in Central Switzerland in a variety of ways and thus provide financial support for elaborate and exceptional projects". The Musikwagen fulfills the award criteria of reaching a broad audience in peripheral regions and communicating music through exchanges between amateurs and professionals.

The four projects selected this year by the seven-member jury from around 20 submitted projects represent the areas of film/photography, youth theater and music: in addition to the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra's music van, these are Lucerne-Kosovo-retour by VorAlpentheater Luzern (CHF 30,000), The Big Picture project by The Big Picture AG Alpnach (CHF 10,000) and Gasthaus Grünenwald in Engelberg (CHF 15,000).
 

The jury of the "Lake Thun Star"The Thunerseespiele was honored for its many years of work with the award, which aims to promote quality awareness and innovation among the region's service providers. With the export of The visit of the old lady - the musical After Vienna, the Thunerseespiele achieved something this year that no Swiss musical producer has managed before: to successfully place a Swiss musical internationally.
After The visit of the old lady - the musical two months ago, the company won all the audience awards of the trade journal musicals the Thun-based cultural enterprise received this special honorary award in its home country on 2 December.

Once again, opera fans will not only be able to experience the play on the lake from the stands in the coming season, but also become part of the production themselves as extras and small actors. For the opera Turandot the Bregenz Festival is looking for 34 men and women who would like to be part of the Bregenz theater family on Lake Constance during the rehearsal phase from June 11 and on the performance days up to and including August 23. The prerequisite is an application via the online form on the Festival website and the successful completion of an audition.

Anyone who has always wanted to be the maid of a real princess and also has a flair for gymnastics and is not afraid of heights has a good chance of joining the Chinese court as an extra. The same applies to the "Persian Girls" and the "Nurses", for which young women with acting experience are also being sought. According to the advertisement, older women are also wanted to take on the role of the emperor's nurses as bit players. Male extras are also required: as the executioner's servants, they should have an athletic, muscular body and the extra for the Prince of Persia should also have an exotic southern look.

In addition to financial remuneration, the reward is above all the unique experience of becoming part of a unique theater family on the world's largest lake stage and being able to perform side by side with international artists. Requirements:
- Minimum age 18 years
- No fear of heights
- be able to swim
- be available throughout the rehearsal and performance period from June 11 to August 23, in some cases during the day if possible
- Acting talent

The application deadline is January 7, 2015. Click here for the online form: http://bregenzerfestspiele.com/de/node/572

Further information can be found on the festival website: www.bregenzerfestspiele.com
 

In addition to Hanover and Mannheim, the Unesco Cities of Music are Seville, Bologna, Glasgow, Ghent, Bogota, Brazzaville and Hamamatsu.

Members of the network are so-called centers of excellence in one of seven areas: film, music, design, gastronomy, media art, crafts or literature. They support each other through cooperation and pass on their experience to other creative cities or metropolitan areas, especially in developing countries.

According to its own characterization, the network supports cities in using their creative potential for urban development. There are no Swiss cities in the network.

In the category Best Practice, Concert the Lucerne Festival is honored for "Heroïca". The staged concert with seven young members of the Lucerne Festival Academy combines musical miniatures in a revue. According to the award announcement, the program is characterized by a joy of playing, dynamism and humour, which also shows courage in its quiet tones.

The category Best Practice, Participatory Concert was won by the Ruhr Piano Festival with "A Year with György Ligeti". In an inclusive approach, 165 young people in Duisburg-Marxloh creatively explored the composer's music and discovered equal forms of collaboration in the artistic process.

Director Verena Ries and the Quartet Plus 1 won the new concept category with their idea for the participatory music theater "The Best Funeral in the World" Lab ear. A collective composition is planned in the space on questions about the end of life. Musical and performative elements merge in the interaction with the audience to form a poetic ritual hybrid.

The Junge Ohren Prize has been awarded by the Netzwerk Junge Ohren since 2006. The competition for young music formats is supported in its Best practice-category by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and in the category Lab ear from the Strecker Foundation. The prize will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year.
 

Arthur Edwin Bosworth founded the publishing house in Leipzig in 1889 under the name Bosworth & Co. to distribute Arthur Sullivan's stage works throughout Germany. Michael Ohst has been Managing Director for Germany since 1998.

In the print sector, Bosworth Music produces chart-topping compilation albums and high-quality songbooks by renowned German rock and pop artists such as Die ärzte, Element of Crime, Die Toten Hosen, Söhne Mannheims, Max Raabe, Silbermond and Unheilig. The publishing house is also dedicated to the expansion of German-language teaching materials: methods for piano, guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, cello, recorder or saxophone consistently combine contemporary design and sophisticated, modern didactics.

The Copyright department deals with the exploitation of publishing rights in the areas of feature films and communication as well as the new production of music for all media. This includes the procurement and licensing of music rights for film and advertising, the procurement and creation of commissioned music, film soundtracks, etc.

The publishing house owns the music rights to world-famous titles such as Tainted Love, Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend, Unchain My Heart as well as current compositions by Hauschka and William Fitzsimmons. Renowned publishing catalogs belong to Bosworth Music: Robert Mellin Musikverlag with titles such as Only You, Hang On Sloopy, Twist And Shout, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow or Eaton Music GmbH with the music of George Fenton and the scores he composed for the BBC series The blue planet.

The record label BRM - Bosworth Recorded Music rounds off a publishing program that is committed to tradition and at the same time creative and innovative in its approach to new developments.
 

The Schweizer Musikzeitung (SMZ) was not spared from the general decline in the volume of advertisements in print media and is struggling with financial problems. The members of the Schweizer Musikzeitung association no longer saw themselves in a position to absorb the impending deficits. They therefore proposed in mid-September to discontinue the printed version at the end of the year and to save the Schweizer Musikzeitung online brand from disappearing.

However, a new publishing model now ensures that the SMZ can continue to be published on paper. At the same time, the members of the Schweizer Musikzeitung association will be relieved of the publishing risk. The SMZ will be transferred to NZZ Fachmedien AG, a new subsidiary of the NZZ Media Group, which will be created on January 1, 2015 from the merger of the specialist publishing houses of St. Galler Tagblatt AG and Multicolor Print AG. SMZ will now be published nine times a year instead of eleven.

The Assembly of Delegates decided today to appoint NZZ Fachmedien AG as both editor and publisher of SMZ from January 1, 2015. Verein Schweizer Musikzeitung is thus relinquishing its rights to the title. This renders the actual purpose of the association obsolete; the Assembly of Delegates has therefore decided to liquidate the association.

Photo from left: René Roshardt (EOV), Hans Peter Völkle (SMV), Katrin Spelinova (Editor-in-Chief), Andreas Weidmann (VMS), Hans Brupbacher (President) and David Sonton (STV), missing: Pascal Müller (SMPV)

The awards in the music category also include Dominik Huber, Jurczok 1001 and Flo Stoffner from the rock/pop/jazz sector. In the dance category, recognition awards of CHF 12,000 each were presented to Tina Beyeler, Simone Blaser, Kilian Haselbeck and Lucie Tuma.

The City of Zurich sees the work years, scholarships and recognition awards as a key instrument for promoting the independent scene, as set out in the cultural mission statement for the years 2012 to 2015 as a goal of the city's cultural policy.

Born in Herisau in 1952, Paul Giger studied in Winterthur and Bern. From 1980 to 1983 he was concertmaster of the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, since then he has been a freelance artist. He works as a music teacher at the cantonal school in Trogen. His repertoire encompasses a wide range of styles from baroque to modern; he also specializes in improvisation, jazz and various folk traditions.

Paul Giger, writes the canton, is "versatile - and many things at the same time: virtuoso of overtones and quarter tones, Bach interpreter, sound tinkerer, explorer of foreign harmonic scales, composer of secular and sacred works that bridge the gap between Western spirituality and Eastern cultures". But he is also a folk musician whose Schleenzigen Zäuerli leave no one cold.

Giger's most recent success came last summer at the St.Gallen Festival with the music to the dance piece Ignis celebrated. With six CDs, all released on the ECM record label, he has built up an international reputation. His personal side was recently featured in the documentary film Karma Shadubdirected by son Ramòn Giger.

Like his predecessor, Thomas Wehry is responsible for marketing and communication at the Basel Sinfonietta. Together with the previous Co-Managing Director, Felix Heri, he is responsible for the management. 

Thomas Wehry comes from northern Germany. After studying music, theater and economics at the University of Bayreuth, he worked as an assistant director and production manager at the opera houses in Munich, Stuttgart and Basel. From 2011 to 2014, he was engaged as an opera consultant at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. There he was involved in setting up the Easter Festival of the Berliner Philharmoniker, developing and establishing the new genres of chamber and children's opera.

With the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, among others, he was able to realize new concert projects at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, most recently for the Summer Festival in July 2014. Thomas Wehry has been based in Basel since 2007 and has had his main residence here since 2011.

As an Armonia member, Suisa can negotiate license agreements with online service providers such as Amazon iTunes, YouTube or Spotify together with the other collecting societies. This has advantages over going it alone, as its repertoire is often comparatively unknown, writes Suisa.

By joining forces with Armonia, Suisa believes it can strengthen its negotiating position with online service providers and thus negotiate better contracts for its members - the composers, lyricists and publishers of music. This would also be an advantage for online service providers, as they would have a single point of contact for licensing a repertoire of music in demand worldwide in the online sector.

Suisa's membership of Armonia only affects its front office activities, i.e. negotiations with online music service providers. On the other hand, the collecting society will continue to handle its own billing processes and data independently via its own IT infrastructure.

Armonia is the world's largest network of copyright societies. It enables online music services to obtain licenses for the Europe-wide use of music. The network was founded by the collecting societies Sacem (France), Sgae (Spain) and Siae (Italy) and now represents a repertoire of over 12 million works in 33 countries.