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.

According to the canton, the cuts of CHF 100,000 in the cultural fund as part of the program to ease the burden on the economy have led to some reductions in recurring contributions.

297,000 francs have been earmarked to support cultural institutions of cantonal importance. Performance agreements have been concluded with the following six institutions for the three years 2015-2017: Appenzeller Blasmusikverband, Appenzeller Kammerorchester, Appenzeller Kulturkonferenz, Ausserrhodische Kulturstiftung, Heimatschutz Appenzell and Schlesinger Stiftung.

In addition, from 2015 an annual contribution of CHF 50,000 will go to the Roothuus Gonten, the center for Appenzell and Toggenburg folk music, of which Appenzell Ausserrhoden is one of the sponsors.

The performance agreements with the four institutions outside the canton, which are of particular importance for the cultural life of Appenzell Ausserrhoden and for which a total of CHF 24,000 is spent annually, will also be continued. These are the Museum in Lagerhaus St. Gallen, Nextex St.Gallen, art-tv.ch and bandXost.
 

The young violinist, who is taught by Fränzi Frick, impressed the seven-member jury in the Small Hall of the Tonhalle Zurich "with her playing technique and musicality", according to a press release from the city of Zurich. She will receive prize money of 3,000 francs, which will be provided by the MKZ Foundation. The money must be invested in her future musical education. Audrey Haenni intends to use it to take part in a master class in Switzerland or abroad.

The aim of the MKZ Foundation is to support young artists in their musical development. The prize is awarded in collaboration with the Tonhalle Society Zurich. The patron of the MKZ Sponsorship Award is Ilona Schmiel, Director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and its chief conductor Lionel Bringuier.

22-year-old Chiara Enderle grew up in a family of musicians in Zurich and has been studying with Jens Peter Maintz at the UdK Berlin since 2012. She has already performed as a chamber musician with her parents in Switzerland, the USA and Japan. She has also attended numerous masterclasses, including the London Masterclass.

The winner of the first prize, the audience prize and the special prize for the best interpretation of Ernest Toch's cello concerto is 20-year-old Frenchman Aurélien Pascal. He won the Rostropovich Junior Competition and the prize for the most promising cellist at the Navarra Cello Competition in Toulouse in 2011. Born in Paris in 1994, he received his training there.

The second prize went to 20-year-old Romanian Andrei Ionita. He received his training at the Bucharest Iosif Sava Music School and from 2012 at the Berlin University of the Arts. At this year's ARD Music Competition, he was awarded second prize in the cello category and the special prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work.

The international Feuermann Competition is organized every four years by Kronberg Academy and the Domenico Gabrielli Foundation of the Berlin University of the Arts. Daniel Barenboim is the patron.

The first highlights of the festival are already known. These include acts such as the London collective Jungle (UK), Sohn (UK/AT), the Bernese duo Lo & Leduc (CH) as well as Bilderbuch (AT), Death by Chocolate (CH), "Demo of the Year" winner 2014 Conjonctive (CH), Phoria (UK) and Sizarr (DE). Earlybird tickets are now available for 79 instead of 89 francs via www.starticket.ch or at the advance booking offices.

The Demotape Clinic is one of the largest and most important up-and-coming band competitions in Switzerland. Thanks to almost two decades of activity by the Migros Culture Percentage, it has established itself as a promoter of Swiss pop music, both among artists and in the industry, and is regarded as a reliable talent scout for the sector. The most promising songs will be presented at m4music on March 27 and 28, 2015 and judged by professionals. Musicians can register until January 18, 2015. In the four categories Pop, Rock, Electronic and Urban, the jury will present the Fondation Suisa Award, each endowed with CHF 3000. The most promising artist from each of the four styles will also receive the "Demo of the Year" award and a further CHF 5000. Following the competition, m4music will produce the CD "The Best of Demotape Clinic 2015" in an edition of more than 4000 copies and distribute it to decision-makers in the Swiss music scene.

More information and registration at www.m4music.ch/de/demotape-clinic

Joshua Weilerstein studied conducting and violin at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Shortly after completing his master's degree, he became one of the two assistant conductors at the New York Philharmonic in May 2011. He gained international attention when he won both first prize and the audience prize at the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen in 2009.

In 2009 and 2010 he worked with the former chief conductor of the Zurich Tonhalle David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival. In summer 2012, he returned there as conductor of the festival orchestra. Weilerstein will conduct at least two OCL concerts per season, record a CD and accompany a tour.
 

The cantonal government has provided financial support for a period of three years since the event was first held. While the sponsoring association received a total of CHF 300,000 from Swisslos funds in the period 2012 to 2014, the amount will now be reduced by a total of CHF 60,000 to CHF 240,000 and a large part will be provided from ordinary funds.

For 2015, the Government Council is approving CHF 100,000 (CHF 70,000 ordinary funds, CHF 30,000 Swisslos) and CHF 70,000 for each of the following years (CHF 50,000 ordinary funds, CHF 20,000 Swisslos). The main reason for the higher contribution next year is the fact that the festival will be facing higher expenditure in 2015 when it is held for the tenth time. In the anniversary year, the musical highlights of the last few years will be presented and, for once, music formations from different cantons and countries will perform, spread over the two weekends from July 2 to 4 and July 9 to 11, 2015.

The Obwald Folk Culture Festival has been held annually since 2006 at the beginning of July in Giswil in the canton of Obwalden. Folk music formations from Obwalden, a guest canton and a guest country perform at the festival. The folk music festival, which takes place in a forest clearing under a tent, showcases Swiss and Obwalden folk music in interplay with European and non-European folk cultures. It is organized by a supporting association, presided over by Daniel Fanger from Sachs. The artistic director is Martin Hess, who grew up in Engelberg and lives in Zurich.

Thomas D. Meier was elected by the 23-member ELIA Board, which consists of representatives from art academies across Europe. Meier takes office with immediate effect.

The ELIA network has more than 300 members from around 50 countries, represents more than 300,000 students and is linked to comparable organizations in Asia and America.

The election is a positive signal for Switzerland, writes the ZHdK. This is the first time that a president from a non-EU country has presided over the large European network. The new campus in the Toni-Areal has played a not insignificant role in this. One of Meier's goals is to bring the 2018 ELIA Congress to the Toni-Areal in Zurich. The last ELIA Congress in Switzerland took place in Lucerne in 2004.

The Green Science Minister Theresia Bauer has announced that the locations in Stuttgart, Trossingen, Freiburg, Mannheim and Karlsruhe will each receive three percent more money per year. This corresponds to a total amount of 28 million euros over the next six years.

The German Music Council welcomes the change of heart in the state of Baden-Württemberg's funding policy. Its Secretary General Christian Höppner hopes that "the crisis of the last one and a half years has served to bring about a gain in knowledge about the importance of music academies". 

The elimination of 500 study places and a stronger profiling of the music university landscape had previously been considered. The universities of Mannheim and Trossingen would be particularly affected. There are plans to close the departments for training orchestral musicians at both locations.

For over ten years, the Klangwelt Toggenburg association has been conveying a unique sound culture between Säntis and Churfirsten - in the form of sound courses, a sound trail, a sound festival and a sound forge. The Klanghaus is intended to provide opportunities to further expand these offerings and develop new products.

The house designed by Meili, Peter Architekten, a Y-shaped, harmoniously structured timber structure, is intended to be "optimally integrated into nature" and thus function as a sound box itself. Its acoustics can be altered thanks to mobile walls.

The building will house four music rooms, a parlor with kitchen and various technical rooms as well as two outdoor stages for musical experiments. In particular, the traditional music of Toggenburg and its further developments, but also other forms of musical expression should be able to unfold in it.

The rehearsal and work rooms of the Klanghaus Toggenburg will be open to music and singing groups, choirs and orchestras - both national and international, professional groups and committed amateurs. In this way, Klanghaus Toggenburg will also contribute to the development of Toggenburg as a tourist destination.

Structured in five time frames, the main room of the exhibition spans an arc
from 1954 to the end of the millennium. Here you can see who played a role in pop music: the dance orchestras of the early 1950s, the Hawaiian bands from Basel, then the "Halbstarken" and Les Sauterelles. In the second half of the 1960s, the beat bands established themselves throughout the country and conquered the Swiss hit parade. The exhibition then shows the development of the various rock scenes. A separate module is dedicated to the Swiss dialect scene, which continues the legacy of Mani Matter. From the mid-1980s, private radio stations and the founding of DRS3, Couleur3 and Rete3 brought a breath of fresh air to Swiss pop music. Finally, in the1990s, hip hop, Eurodance and techno came into their own. The exhibition gives Swiss pop music from the year 2000 onwards a stand-alone appearance, with a separate room dedicated to it, in which the leap into the digital age becomes visible: Three large projection screens show 42 music videos by current Swiss bands and artists.

Many original objects and over 400 minutes of sound and film material from all decades can be discovered. Pop radio pioneer François Mürner gives an acoustic tour of the rooms. To accompany the exhibition, Chronos Verlag Zurich is publishing an illustrated book with 200 pop photos from Switzerland. The photographs, some of which are rare, bring together national and international artists. A supporting program with short films rounds off the offer.

Guided tours and workshops can be booked for school classes from year 5 to upper secondary level. Didactic materials are also available free of charge for music teachers.

Information: www.mfk.ch/ausstellungen/oh-yeah/