The booklet by the clarinettist, who teaches at the Fribourg Conservatory, is in French. Each piece is dedicated to two or three technical aspects of clarinet playing. This begins with warming up, an embouchure and a reed exercise and extends to advanced playing techniques on the clarinet. The two-line duet Funambule (Seiltänzer) is dedicated to micro-interval glissandi in the third position, whereby the resulting friction simultaneously opens the player's ears. Other pieces deal with slaps, multiphonics and quavers. While the fingerings for the microintervals and multiphonics are given, there are unfortunately no instructions on how to play the slap reeds.

The last three pieces in the booklet combine several of the techniques previously worked on separately and are also suitable for auditions or level tests. ZiganaThe eponymous piece is a gypsy tune with a slow introduction, a lively middle section and a fully composed cadenza at the end. A piano accompaniment is also included for this and four other numbers. Juggling is a duet with many suggestions and a melody divided between the two voices, which is a rhythmic challenge for the players, but also a lot of fun. On the last track Le Serpent et la Mouche is a solo piece in which the new playing techniques developed previously are fully utilized.

These appealing practice pieces do not neglect musical expression and the pictorial titles stimulate the player's imagination. This edition is aimed at advanced beginners who have already mastered the basics of clarinet playing and are keen to explore new playing techniques on their instrument.

Sarah Chardonnens Lehmann, Zigana, 23 courtes pièces originales et dynamiques, dont cinq avec piano, pour jeunes clarinettistes. C06756, € 19.20, Editions Combre (Henry Lemoine), Paris 2013

Anyone who goes on a journey often follows a timetable, but must always be able to improvise and get involved in something new. - And this is precisely the aim of Andreas Hirche in A piano goes on a journeypublished by Breitkopf Pädagogik. The carefully selected examples are marked with levels of difficulty and give the player a kind of roadmap to many small improvisation islands on which to linger. The selection is aimed at all those who feel addressed by world music and who are open to discovering and trying out new things. Whether more meditative and introverted as in Japanese music or lively and extraverted as in the music of the Balkans or South America, there is something to suit every taste.

The author sees the booklet as a kind of piano school and with this in mind provides a wealth of very helpful tips. On the one hand, background knowledge on the different styles, but also technical playing aids and considerations on aspects such as "balance between practicing and playing", "flow", "technique" or "problems with independence". In addition, the appendix contains a detailed glossary of important technical terms, and an accompanying CD gives you the opportunity to listen to the pieces and practice improvising to play-alongs in mp3 format.

Andreas Hirche, A piano goes on a journey. World music, rhythm, improvisation, EB 8819, with CD, € 24.90, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2014

New marketing channels, especially online, are playing an increasingly important role, write those responsible. Quality is crucial, but marketing and sales tools from the commercial sector must also be applied to classical concerts. The successful marketing strategy of the Konzerthaus Dortmund and its artistic director Benedikt Stampa was presented as an example. According to him, the 3 percent of all households that actively participate in concert life in Germany could be doubled through appropriate changes.

Dieter Haselbach, professor at the Center for Cultural Research in Berlin and co-author of the book "Der Kulturinfarkt", questioned the claimed doubling of the market. The pop generation is being lost to concert halls, he said, and this loss cannot be compensated for by appropriate marketing measures and emotionalization strategies. He called for the orchestra's decline to be planned accordingly.

As a practical example of new marketing channels with regard to optimal customer loyalty management, experts in software solutions provided in-depth insights into their sales systems: Lutz Rosteck from the Hamburg-based company eventim.Inhouse, European market leader in ticket sales, places a particular focus on successful visitor loyalty. Sebastian Preuss reported on the sales system of ROC GmbH, which already reaches 90 percent of its audience via online sales.

More info: www.deutscher-orchestertag.de
 

It is a rare occurrence when orchestral works by Swiss composers are announced; they are too much tainted by the smell of epigonism, of the romantic and classicist at the wrong time. The recording of works by Othmar Schoeck, Ernst Widmer and Adolf Brunner presented by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of Swiss conductor Rainer Held on Guild cannot remedy this "flaw". But it is still a pleasure to listen to.

You already know what to expect from Schoeck (1886-1957) before listening to the Festive hymn op. 64 and the Overture to William Ratcliff op. 29, which are presented as world premiere recordings. The works, composed in 1950 and 1908, are characterized by a late Romantic style, sometimes downright "palatable" moments, pathetic gestures and a treatment of the orchestra that - especially in the Overture - is strongly oriented towards Liszt. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth listening to, especially because the performers are committed to this music.

Rainer Held, who has made a name for himself as an orchestral and choral conductor, seems predestined for this music full of drama and hymn-like melodies. In contrast, the Concerto for piano, percussion and orchestra op. 160 by Ernst Widmer (1927-1990), who emigrated to Brazil, is strongly rhythmically charged. The work was premiered in Zurich in 1988 by Emmy Henz-Diémand on the piano and Michel Tabachnik. In this recording, however, it does not have the drive of that time. This may be due to the pianist Fali Pavri, who does not achieve the percussive grip of Emmy Henz, Widmer's great advocate. In addition to some thrilling moments, the work is also somewhat heterogeneous and lengthy at times.

Adolf Brunner (1901-1992) belonged to a generation of Swiss composers who were strongly inclined towards neoclassicism and regularly composed for the chamber orchestras that were emerging at the time. All the more astonishing is the Partita for piano and orchestra (1938/1939), which, committed to tonality, repeatedly finds its way to grand gestures alongside typically classical passages. As Chris Walton notes in an informative booklet text, it is sometimes reminiscent of Brahms.

All in all, this is an exciting, captivatingly interpreted trouvaille.

In addition to open market access for all, the Fair Trade Music model should ensure fair compensation and transparency of market structures. In particular, the producers themselves should be involved in the market negotiations and they should earn a fair share of the profits from offers on streaming platforms.

Founded in 1966, the CIAM (Conseil International des Créateurs de Musique) is an originally European organization that represents the interests of music creators within the framework of international copyright organizations. The current president is the Italian composer Lorenzo Ferraro.

More info: ciamcreators.org.gridhosted.co.uk/ciam2014/

The streetcar is full on the special trip to Pyramidale. The festival for new music and interdisciplinary art events has been taking place since 2001 in the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, the largest prefabricated housing estate in Europe with around a quarter of a million inhabitants.

An aerophone is also involved here: a tangle of tubes runs through the car, a generator pumps air through organ pipes. It hums and beeps and breathes in a duet with the sound of the tram. Violinist Biliana Voutchkova improvises to this, imitating the squeaking and setting staccato-like accents. Experimental musician Thomas Noll in white overalls pulls out the stops on his instrument, plays on individual organ pipes and also uses colorful little plastic toys to create contrasting sounds. The musicians move through the car, changing the sound space. And everything changes outside too: from the center of Berlin via Alexanderplatz, the streetcar travels for an hour further and further out through industrial areas right into the middle of the prefabricated buildings of Marzahn. From this Tramophony the audience rises and has arrived in another world.

Overflowing possibilities

As in 2010, Switzerland was the guest of honor at the 13th Pyramidale with a number of performers and composers, and the main theme was above all else: Thirst. On the first evening, the thirst theme with variations with texts by the Thuringian author Kathrin Schmidt for the world premiere. folk lampedusian docile rural crying dark impulsivewas the title of the seven parts, which were set to music by seven composers in chamber ensembles. The piece Hourless by Katia Guedes, a duet for saxophone (Meriel Price) and soprano (Franziska Welti). "When I wanted to love you", says the text, and the breath of the saxophone merges with the breath of the voice as if in an embrace. The keys of the saxophone pick up the rhythm of the speech, the sound of the instrument and the voice nestle around each other and interpenetrate, creating an almost erotic piece of music.

The seven pieces are presented in a minimalist staging. Director Holger Müller-Brandes confines himself to setting up different venues for the individual parts in the sparse glass room of the Pyramide exhibition center, thereby changing the spatial impression. Franziska Welti and narrator Christian Bormann exchange tense glances, toast with wine, and at the end a glass breaks. Strangely, despite their brevity, these scenes seem somewhat contrived and contrived. Trusting the text, music, space, mood and voice would have been more effective.

After the interval, there will still be an extensive program in which the musicians of the Ensemble JungeMusik Berlin can also prove themselves as soloists. In Interlude by Sarah Nemtsov for oboe and electronics, in which the electronically multiplied oboe voices float through the room like ghosts, oboist Antje Thierbach presents her skills. In Albedo by Helmut Zapf from 2001, Martin Glück shines on the flutes. Unfortunately, the use of electronics in this piece seems a little clumsy and too loud.

The premiere Erring paths by Johannes K. Hildebrandt is reminiscent of a nervous rush through a labyrinth. Nightmarish, fluttering, trembling, hectic impulses alternate with tense pauses and nervous runs, only to slow down at the end, like the exhausted heartbeat of someone eternally lost, like giving up, breathing out.

The piece forms an impressive conclusion The channel from the wall by Juliane Klein. Violoncello, oboe, clarinet, saxophone and flute are individually distributed around the room and play several solo pieces in parallel. Each soloist plays at their own tempo. The sound of the different instruments blends well in the sparse glass room. In the end, only the cello (Vladimir Reshetko) remains. The free composition of the piece allows the performance to sound completely different on another day, to have a completely different outcome. The knowledge of this lies over what is heard like a slightly shifted layer of possibility.

In the presence of representatives of the German Embassy in Kabul, an agreement was signed by the Chancellor of the Weimar University of Music, Christine Gurk, and the Chancellor of Kabul University, Habibullah Habib. For three years now, the Safar project of the study profile at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena has been facilitating an exchange between Afghan and German musicians and academics.

The first points of the new agreement are already being put into practice: various workshops and an academic symposium are currently being held at Kabul University. The handover of the archive and a joint concert by German and Afghan musicians are also planned.

In a first joint remote seminar, an exchange between students from both universities will also take place until May 2015 using a specially designed e-learning platform. In addition to an insight into the diversity of Afghan music cultures, soft skills in the field of transcultural music research will be taught primarily through the collective development of papers and presentations by students from Weimar and Kabul. 

The Transcultural Music Studies program at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena, headed by Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, cooperates closely with various partners in Afghanistan in the Safar project. The aim of the joint work is to revitalize traditional Afghan music cultures and strengthen musical civil society. The project is fully funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.

In his doctoral thesis as part of the project led by Thomas Burkhalter, Immanuel Brockhaus reconstructs the emergence of "cult sounds" (for example the electric piano sound of the DX7 synthesizer) and traces their formative influence on the history of popular music.

Methods of ethnomusicology and sound analysis are used. Case studies are used to examine the meanings that a cult sound can take on in different geographical and cultural contexts.

Previous studies have not yet addressed the topic of sound at the molecular level. This research project is the first to explore the question of which individual sounds have shaped popular music from its beginnings to the present day. How do such cult sounds develop, how do they evolve and how do they relate to technological developments? How do cult sounds behave in multi-local contexts?

The Graduate School of the Arts (GSA) is a cooperation between the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Bern and the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Department of Bern University of the Arts. It is an interdisciplinary doctoral program aimed at both researching artists and academics who are interested in artistic practice.

Project homepage: www.cult-sounds.com
 

What happens when the subsidized (music) theater landscape collapses? What can be the answer if the traditional institutions no longer offer a framework for artistic expression? What strategies and forms could be used to artistically counter this impending sell-out of culture?

In times of omnipresent financial difficulties and austerity measures, the questions that the independent opera company Novoflot is asking itself as part of the project T-house tour presents. From October 16 to 19, 2014, the second part of the multi-stage music theater experiment took place on the forecourt of Berlin's Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. To this end, the Berlin architectural group Graft, together with stage designer Annamaria Cattaneo, erected a transformable building made up of flexible modules in the public space, the "transforming house". Metal struts and heavy, transparent plastic sheets are the material used to assemble the various square rooms. Hanging in them are colorful, Asian-style costumes, also wrapped in plastic, and various accessories define the rooms according to specific functions. One is set up as a kind of music room with a guitar amplifier and drum kit, there is an office with a computer and keyboard, on the screen a dialog about captivity. In another room there is a microphone and a loop station.

For six hours a day, various artists perform in this setting in an impenetrable sequence of improvisation and staging (composition: Michael Werthmüller, direction: Sven Holm). The audience can move around, sometimes influencing the events, but mostly just opening their eyes and ears in amazement at what is combined here in terms of sound and context. In one of the rooms, for example, trombonists Nils Wogram and Conny Bauer improvise together while actor Raphael Clamer speaks a text into a recording device: "I have given up on being an intelligent person ..." Possibly the right attitude of reception for such a multi-layered event, the complexity of which can never be fully grasped. Two elderly ladies, dressed in exuberant costume mixtures of dirndl and kimono, speak sentences into the loop device. Detached from the body, the voices repeat: "Can I smoke while I eat?" and "I'll say it in Friedenauisch!" Raphael Cramer plays these interjections distorted, chopped up, backwards. Meanwhile, the singer Yuka Yanagihara and the dancer Ichi-Go have sat down on the floor in one of the other rooms and begin a hysterical conversation in Japanese.

The conductor Vicente Larrañaga, dressed in black, acts silently and inconspicuously, but like a secret master of ceremonies. Yuka Yanagihara, whose costume is reminiscent of a Japanese schoolgirl, leaves the venue and crosses the street. From there, accompanied only by the two trombones, she sings with her melodious soprano: "Recognize where your true measure ..." Passers-by stop and film this unusual street scene with their smartphones. Their comments and conversations, the background noise of the city and, in particular, the fight of several dogs somewhere at the other end of the square are mixed into the singing. Guitarist John Schröder begins an improvisation with the two trombonists, in the course of which he in turn uses the loop device and also reveals himself to be a gifted drummer. The concentrated energy of this session heats up the small, enclosed space, while outside a group of children play tag between the hanging pieces of foil. When the musicians stop playing, the intensity of their encounter reverberates in the silence for a long time. Outside, a boy calls loudly for his friend: "E-li-as!!!"

What Novoflot has achieved here is nothing less than a fusion of art and public space. And a number of questions immediately arise: Where is the boundary between actor and spectator? Is it possible to tell the difference between staging and improvisation? And what part does each individual play in what happens in public? These questions also resonate and arouse curiosity about the next stages of this open musical theater.

According to the Report According to the "Landbote" newspaper, from mid-2017 "both rehearsals and concerts will no longer take place in the venerable Tonhalle in Zurich's city center, but in a former industrial hall near the Prime Tower". The temporary arrangement is set to last around three years, as long as the renovation of the Kongresshaus and the Tonhalle takes.

Founded in 1868, the Zurich orchestra is the oldest symphony orchestra in Switzerland. When the Zurich Tonhalle opened in 1895, it was given a hall that is considered to be one of the best in the world in terms of acoustics. Following delays, the building will be closed and renovated for three years from 2017.

The Theatergenossenschaft Basel, which supports Theater Basel, had applied for an increase of CHF 1.4 million from the previous annual subsidy of CHF 4.5 million to CHF 5.9 million from the 2015/16 season.

The cantonal government states that "additional funds for the additional needs of the Theater Basel in the artistic area are not a priority in terms of financial policy". In connection with a deepening of the partnership with the canton of Basel-Stadt, the Basel-Landschaft cantonal government also sees "the priorities in the areas of education, health and infrastructure".
 

In July, the Lucerne Cantonal Council approved a planning report on the promotion of culture, and the Culture Promotion Act must now be amended accordingly. This concerns the expansion of cantonally funded cultural institutions and the planned measure of selective production funding.

The prerequisite for the latter is the realization of regional development funds in various regions of the Canton of Lucerne, in cooperation with the regional development agencies and the municipalities.

Under the selective production funding scheme, professional artists can apply with a project in response to a call for proposals. If a project meets the specified criteria, the canton can contribute financially to its realization.

The law must be amended to include the Lucerne Festival and the Swiss Museum of Transport in the special-purpose association. 

Around 50 musicians from so-called third countries are expected to have to leave Switzerland by the end of the year (see Message). According to the law, musicians living in the city of Basel and the canton of Baselland must have a permanent position of at least 75 percent, writes Suisseculture.

However, this does not correspond to the real labor market in artistic professions. Permanent positions are also the exception in other artistic fields. Most theater professionals, dancers, authors and visual artists work on a freelance basis. However, they are important sources of inspiration for society.

According to Suisseculture, the quota system for foreign workers in the cultural sector shows "unworldly and absurd features": music schools, for example, are sometimes not allowed to employ top-class musicians because they cannot prove that there is "no comparable artist" in Switzerland.

"During his time in office, Ullrich "made a significant contribution to the promotion and strengthening of cultural creation in the Basel area and to the cultural policy development of the Basel region with great commitment", writes the canton.

The cultural.bl department of the Education, Culture and Sport Directorate of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft supports professional art and culture in the Basel region. It conveys and promotes culture in all its diversity, with a particular focus on the promotion of contemporary art.

The management position of the cultural.bl department will be publicly advertised and should be filled in good time.
 

The new contrabass clarinet is intended to overcome the instrument's lack of tonal and technical quality under a "radically new premise": by replacing the traditional mechanics with sensory-dynamic keys and motorized keys, there is no longer any need to compromise on the placement of the tone holes, writes the HKB. Sound and intonation would be significantly improved and new interfaces for composers and performers, and even for media art, would be created. Ernesto Molinari's project is headed by Roman Brotbeck.

The HKB has also been invited to take part in the EU project "Experimentation versus Interpretation: Exploring New Paths in Music Performance in the Twenty-First Century" of the European Research Council & Orpheus Institute, Ghent. SNSF professor Kai Köpp will act as a permanent expert and contribute to the project with a study of historical recordings from the Schönberg circle.

A new SNSF project, successfully submitted by Thomas Gartmann, head of research at the HKB, explores how Beethoven's piano works were received in the long 19th century: two closely interlinked dissertations examine from both ends how interpretative practices changed and developed after Beethoven's death and thus to a large extent still shape our image of Beethoven today.

Leonardo Miucci takes Ignaz Moscheles' diary entries, letters and piano schools as his starting point and compares the two major Beethoven editions that he produced in the 1830s for the English market and twenty years later for the German market. Manuel Bärtsch evaluates recordings with Welte-Mignon rolls and early acoustic recordings and contextualizes them both historically and aesthetically. Both studies focus on articulation, dynamics, agogics, pedalization, (transposition of) performance markings, tempo and metronome markings.