The Belarusian student at Bern University of the Arts (HKB) has lived in Bern since 2018. He completed the MA Music Performance program in the class of Professor Tomasz Herbut with distinction and is currently studying classical music in the MA Music Pedagogy. During his concert career, Raman has performed in many European and Latin American countries and has won international piano and ensemble competitions.

At the 30th Concorso Internationale per Pianoforte e Orchestra Città di Cantù, Raman Kamisarau competed in the category 19th & 20th century concertos with Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto, C minor, op.18.

The three prizewinners are studying in Matthias Racz's class at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). The first prize went to the Korean bassoonist Minju Kim, born in 1996, the second to Kenichi Furuya from Japan and the third to the bassoonist Minju Kim from Korea, born in 1999. All three received further awards in addition to the main prizes.

The competition is held every year in May in two instrumental categories. Musicians up to the age of thirty can take part. This year's competition was for clarinet and bassoon. In addition to cash prizes, there are concert performances to be won, including a performance at the Prague Spring Festival the following year.

The competition for viola and trombone will be held in 2023 and for violin and horn in 2024.
 

Born and raised in Lugano in 1996, the trumpeter, composer and producer Quinn has made a name for himself with his stylistic versatility and understanding of the jazz language, according to the press release. Nolan Quinn began playing the trumpet at the age of nine. After studying classical music, he completed a Master of Arts in Music Performance Jazz in Bern in 2014. Since then, he has recorded over five hundred live performances for a variety of productions, television and radio programs - with tours that have taken him across Europe and the USA.

He has performed on stage with many internationally renowned instrumentalists and singers, including Paul Anka, DJ Bobo, Tony Momrelle, Roberto Blades, Frank Dellé, Rick Margitza, Lutz Häfner and Guillermo Klein. In Switzerland, he has worked for many years with the Swiss Jazz Orchestra, the Swiss Army Big Band and as first trumpet in musical productions at the Theater St. Gallen and the Thunerseespiele.

The Swiss Jazz Award, which has already gone to musicians such as Pepe Lienhard, Raphael Jost, Bruno Spoerri, Franco Ambrosetti and, in 2019, the late Othella Dallas, will be presented again this year as part of the JazzAscona Festival.

Witten is not beautiful. Witten has the typical appearance of a city in the Ruhr region that was badly destroyed in the Second World War. Rapid reconstruction was the order of the day in the 1950s. Without any consideration for aesthetics or urban planning, an unadorned, straight pedestrian zone was planted in the center, surrounded by new buildings and various industrial halls. But despite all the dreariness: You can find them, the little oases, in this small town of around 100,000 inhabitants. One of these is definitely Witten's Schwesternpark. Since the beginning of the 20th century, this enchanted park has offered nurses relaxation and a piece of home. Here they could stroll along winding paths, lie down on the meadows, play tag, laugh and simply have fun.

Last year, sound installations in Schwesternpark were already on the program of the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik. Those were lockdown times and the certainly well-intentioned radio broadcast, including moderation, could only convey a vague impression of what unfolded in all its splendor this time: There are the musicians, who in Daniel Otts Spatial interventions Nurse Park Fragments move freely through the park. They seem to pass the balls to each other, leaving space for silence and sometimes making contact with vocalists scattered around the park.

Ott's colleague, Lilian Beidleralso from Switzerland, is showing her special work called Pleasure roots and dream barkn. As if from nowhere, the audience hears all kinds of insect sounds in the best sunny weather. Surely these could also come live from nature. But when female laughter and giggling can be heard, the audience becomes skeptical. In fact, the voices and sounds are coming from the earth, where Beidler has hidden her loudspeakers under a layer of peat. Born in Bern in 1982, she is obviously imagining the sisters having fun in the park. However, this has not only a humorous, but also a mysterious note. At some point, a deeper "boo hoo" emerges from the loudspeakers: Yes, voices from the underworld.

It is a special "Witten vintage". Harry Vogt directed the festival for 33 years. He moved much of the festival into the great outdoors, sometimes with sensational success, such as Manos Tsangaris' "Audio movie" Swallowwhere musicians played on an excursion boat on the Ruhr. Vogt emphasizes that he wanted to extend the theme of "dialogues" - inscribed in chamber music - to dialogues with nature, but also to an intensified dialogue with performers, which proved to be particularly fruitful. Very good musicians, closeness to the music and a certain (and justified) skepticism towards some fashions were trademarks of the deserving festival director, who is now taking his leave.

Vogt apparently had to wait years for the eagerly awaited premiere of the trio by the now 86-year-old Helmut Lachenmann. Now the three incredibly accomplished string players of Trio Recherche are finally playing the String Trio No. 2. Lachenmann remains true to his aesthetic credo, the definition of "beauty as refusal". Often toneless, the musicians carefully brush the strings with the wood. From the barely audible - but all the more intense - rushing pianissimo come sudden loud attacks in the form of overlapping, dense lines that can hardly be untangled. How fresh and dramaturgically perfect the "old master Lachenmann" still sounds!

Beat Furrer, born in Schaffhausen in 1954, is a constant, recurring Witten guest. According to Furrer in the program book, ideas for his trio have apparently been circulating for twenty years. Now it is simply called into the open and is tailor-made for the Trio Accanto with Markus Weiss (saxophone), Nicolas Hodges (piano) and Christian Dierstein (drums). Furrer starts from a simple unison. The parts become increasingly distant from one another, culminating in a brilliant, almost autistic virtuosity, especially in the saxophone. The compositional craft is also virtuoso. Furrer captures the fraying trio again and again. In the end, after all the distances, it may not sound beautiful, but it sounds coherent - and gives this fantastic farewell to Witten another very special note.

According to the press release, the idea of the "Prix Serdang" was born during the pandemic and serves to "promote and preserve artistic creation". It is to be awarded annually from 2022. Curator Rudolf Buchbinder recommends a maximum of three young talents. The choice will ultimately be made by initiator Adrian Flury and cultural manager Thomas Pfiffner.

Martin James Bartlett began his musical education at the age of six. His first public success was winning BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2014. The following year he made his debut at the BBC Proms with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2021.

The Villa Serdang in Feldbrunnen near Solothurn, originally built in 1644 and converted into an Art Nouveau villa in 1892, has been used as a meeting place for cultural purposes since its renovation in 2012. The Prix Serdang will be presented there for the first time on July 2, 2022 as part of a recital.

Music therapy is likely to lead to an improvement in overall symptoms by the end of therapy compared to placebo therapy or standard treatment (GRADE rating of the certainty of the evidence: moderate). It is also likely to help improve quality of life and alleviate individual symptoms.

Music therapy probably does not lead to adverse events. The evidence does not indicate whether music therapy improves social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication by the end of therapy. A number of unanswered research questions remain, particularly regarding the longer-term effects of music therapy.

Original publication:
Geretsegger M, Fusar-Poli L, Elefant C, Mössler KA, Vitale G, Gold C. Music therapy for autistic people. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2022, Issue 5. Art. No.: CD004381. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004381.pub4.

The first festival season of the new artistic director will therefore be in the summer of 2025, according to the Bregenz Festival House's announcement, while the first new production of The Play on the Lake under the new artistic direction will be in the summer of 2026. After the play on the lake Madame Butterfly of the years 2022 and 2023, Carl Maria von Weber will be on stage in the summers of 2024 and 2025. The Freischütz under the direction of Rigoletto director Philipp Stölzl is on the program.

Sobotka's predecessor in Berlin, Matthias Schulz, will take over as Artistic Director of Zurich Opera House at the start of the 2025/26 season.

The Sofia (Support of Female Improvising Artists) program, founded by Nicole Johänntgen and held for the first time in 2014, takes place every two years. It offers young female musicians the opportunity to raise their artistic profile and promotes their networking and self-marketing. This year's six female musicians selected by a jury will actively participate in numerous workshops, which can also be attended by the public. If you would like to listen, please register by e-mail, even at short notice, and you will receive the exact details of where the individual workshops will take place: hello@SOFIA-Musicnetwork.com

Extraordinary this year: On Saturday, May 21, the Ukrainian Youth Jazz Band will jam together with the workshop participants from 12 noon at the Villa Schneckenmann in Zurich.
 

The first festival season of the new artistic director will therefore be in the summer of 2025, according to the Bregenz Festival House's announcement, while the first new production of The Play on the Lake under the new artistic direction will be in the summer of 2026. After the play on the lake Madame Butterfly of the years 2022 and 2023, Carl Maria von Weber will be on stage in the summers of 2024 and 2025. The Freischütz under the direction of Rigoletto director Philipp Stölzl is on the program.

Sobotka's predecessor in Berlin, Matthias Schulz, will take over as Artistic Director of Zurich Opera House at the start of the 2025/26 season.

The Sofia (Support of Female Improvising Artists) program, founded by Nicole Johänntgen and held for the first time in 2014, takes place every two years. It offers young female musicians the opportunity to raise their artistic profile and promotes their networking and self-marketing. This year's six female musicians selected by a jury will actively participate in numerous workshops, which can also be attended by the public. If you would like to listen, please register by e-mail, even at short notice, and you will receive the exact details of where the individual workshops will take place: hello@SOFIA-Musicnetwork.com

Extraordinary this year: On Saturday, May 21, the Ukrainian Youth Jazz Band will jam together with the workshop participants from 12 noon at the Villa Schneckenmann in Zurich.
 

Verena Lutz, born on February 6, 1941 in Zurich, died on April 9, 2022 in Horstmar, Germany, her relatives have announced. She was the main organist at the Bruder Klaus church in Zurich for 48 years.

Her concert tours have taken her from America to the Far East.
In 2014, she founded the Arte Musica Foundation, which aims to promote organ compositions by Swiss composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, among other things.
Between 1959 and 2012, she made numerous recordings, which will soon be released as a CD collection with a booklet on her biography.

Eight years after its first edition, the Swiss Music Prize is changing its format: in addition to the Swiss Music Prizes for individual musicians and music formations, three special prizes will now be awarded to important institutions and players on the Swiss music scene. For example, the new special music prizes will also be awarded to personalities, venues, labels and educational projects that actively promote the position of music in our country, music creation and cultural heritage.

The group Yello was founded as a trio in Zurich in the late 1970s. Since the fourth of a total of 14 studio albums, Yello has consisted of the duo Boris Blank and Dieter Meier. Boris Blank is primarily responsible for the music, while Dieter Meier contributes the lyrics, his deep frontman voice and the visual concepts. The use of samples and synthetic sounds in particular have made history: With singles such as The Race or Oh Yeah Swiss music reached previously unattainable heights in the international charts.

Once again this year, the Federal Office is convinced that the winners of the Swiss Music Prize bear witness to the vibrancy and diversity of Swiss musical creation: the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp (Geneva) combines different poetics and aesthetics in an unconventional way; Daniel Ott (Grub AR) conceives new forms of sound enjoyment by incorporating spaces and landscapes and constantly explores music theater anew.

Ripperton (Lausanne), one of the most creative Swiss producers in the techno and house genres, is representing electronic music this year alongside the winners of the Grand Prix Musik; outstanding technical and interpretative versatility is one of the characteristics of mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti (Lausanne), who is representing the classical-contemporary genre together with pianist Simone Keller (Weinfelden TG), a tireless initiator of musical projects and explorer of new sounds.

The percussionist, composer and electronic artist Arthur Hnatek (Geneva) takes an extraordinary look at the music of today; also associated with the world of percussion - with a precise, pure and gesturally minimal stylistic signature - is Fritz Hauser (Basel), a composer and performer with a unique stage presence.

The Swiss Music Awards have been in existence since 2014. Every year, the Federal Office of Culture commissions around ten music experts from all parts of the country who are active in the various musical disciplines to nominate around 60 candidates for the Swiss Music Awards. At the beginning of the year, the seven-member Federal Jury for Music selects 11 winners from the entries. The Swiss Grand Prix Music is endowed with CHF 100,000, the Swiss Music Prizes, which will be reduced from 15 to 11, with CHF 40,000 each and the Special Prizes with CHF 25,000 each. The total amount distributed to the individual prizes remains unchanged by the new structure.

In a petition, the Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger (GDBA) demands a minimum wage of between 2750 and 3100 euros, depending on the size of the theater and qualifications. Those affected usually have a university degree, they work on Sundays and public holidays, during the week often in split shifts and often longer than other professional groups. Currently, the minimum wage of 2,000 euros is lower than in the public sector for unskilled and semi-skilled kitchen assistants and messengers.

The collective bargaining negotiations between the GDBA and the Vereinigung deutscher Opern- und Tanzensembles e.V. (VdO) and the Deutscher Bühnenverein are to be continued in June.

After the negotiations have already been postponed once, a further postponement is not possible due to the advanced budget planning in the member theaters, writes the Bühnenverein. It is therefore giving its members the normative recommendation to pay artistic employees a salary of at least 2,500 euros per month from the coming season. 

Born in Australia, Riebl attended secondary school at the Vienna Musikgymnasium. During this time, he sang in the Hofburgkapellenchor and the Clemencic Consort. He studied baroque singing in Basel, working with Gerd Türk, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and Andrea Marcon. He also studied singing with Silvia Purcar (Vienna) and Dermot Tutty (Melbourne).

Riebl has performed in Basel with the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra, but has also been contracted by the Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Opera, the London Handel Orchestra, the Song Company and Orchestra Victoria. Highlights of his career include performances at the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Musikverein and the Royal Albert Hall.

The Zurich University of the Arts has announced that Jakub Przybycien has been accepted as a scholarship holder of the German Music Council's Conducting Forum. He is studying orchestral conducting with Johannes Schlaefli.

In addition, Yiheng Li won 2nd prize in category E (18 to 36 years) at the Franz Liszt Center International Piano Competition. She is studying for a Master's degree in Performance Concerto with Eckart Heiligers.