Muriel Constantin joined the Department of Culture as a cultural advisor in 2009, succeeding Karl Salzgeber, who retired. She was responsible for the management of the cultural promotion division and developed specific support facilities, in particular MusikPro and ArtPro. She was also responsible for the computerization of dossier management and the introduction of the online counter in summer 2013.

Constantin would like to "reorient her professional activity in closer connection with her university education in art history". Since May 1, 2014, cultural advisor Axel Roduit has been responsible for cultural promotion. The position will be advertised soon.

Barbara Betschart completed a three-year commercial secondary school and a classical music degree with a teaching diploma. She is a permanent member of the Capriccio Baroque Orchestra. She also plays classical and folk music in various ensembles, including with her husband, the Schwyzerörgel player Markus Flückiger.
As a qualified music school director, she managed the cantonal music school in Uri for four years. Most recently, she was Vice Principal at the Lucerne Municipal Music School.

The previous Roothuus Managing Director Florian Walser has had to resign from his position at the end of August 2014. He was able to accept the position in 2012 thanks to a temporary 50% reduction in his workload at the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, he writes in the press release on the personnel matter. Unfortunately, a further extension of this reduction was not possible. As he was dependent on full-time employment, the only option was to resign in Gonten.

The Roothuus is a building in the village center of Gonten. The name recalls the original red painting. The historic building was restored in 2006/07 and furnished for the purposes of the Center for Appenzell Folk Music.

Suisseculture expects that, in addition to contemporary adjustments to the enforcement of the law, new forms of remuneration corresponding to digital uses in favor of the entitled creative artists will also be included in the amendment of the law.
Income from copyrights has collapsed in recent years. However, they are vital for many creative artists.

On the other hand, file-sharing and piracy platforms generate millions in profits from the proceeds of artistic works without adequately compensating the authors and performers for their works.

Suisseculture appeals to the Federal Council to press ahead with the revision as quickly as possible and to immediately take preventive and educational measures that are possible even without amending the law.

The Federal Council wants to modernize copyright law and adapt the rights and obligations of creative artists, consumers and providers to the reality of the Internet with targeted measures. The Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) will prepare a draft for consultation by the end of 2015.

On the one hand, it will base this on recommendations adopted by the working group on copyright law (AGUR12). On the other hand, the FDJP will take into account the findings of a working group that is currently examining the civil liability of providers in general.

One day after the opening of the Football World Cup, Germany will kick off the World Cup under the motto All in one rhythm the Day of Music from June 13 to 15, 2014 with events throughout Germany. This year's initiative emphasizes the proximity of music and sport.

The Swiss Music Council (SMR) invites all those who are organizing a concert, performance, opera, instrument exhibition, etc. on 21 June 2014, to submit this event under the label Festival of music to represent the event. They can do this, for example, by stating in the program booklet that June 21 is the Day of Music, or by placing the logo on programs, flyers, posters, etc., or by registering with as many others as possible on the Day of Music website.

The websites:
Germany: www.tag-der-musik.de
Switzerland: www.musikrat.ch/tag-der-musik

The SFBC supports the overall objectives of the report and agrees that the strategy adopted to date should be continued. This includes the financing and further development of the major cultural institutions, the new theater infrastructure NTI (under the leadership of the Special Purpose Association of Major Cultural Institutions with the partners Lucerne Theater, Independent Scene, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival, KKL Lucerne, Südpol), the regional development funds and selective production funding.

All of the measures meet with broad approval. The additional costs are justifiable. The SFBC finds it acceptable that the additional funding required is covered by lottery money, as is common practice in other cantons. The measures involving the KKL and the Lucerne Theater are particularly important in the Commission's view. The theater's infrastructure is getting on in years and urgently needs to be renewed.

The SFBC also considers the regional development funds to be important. The strengthening of the independent scene is also welcomed by the Commission. In future, fewer projects should receive higher contributions in selective production funding.

The measures will result in an additional annual charge of CHF 1.1 million for the Zweckverband Grosse Kulturbetriebe and an additional funding requirement of CHF 19 million for the KKL Luzern (period 2014 to 2028, including roof renovation) compared to 2012. For the future promotion of independent cultural production, an additional funding requirement of CHF 980,000 can be assumed from 2015. This amount includes selective production funding, film funding, cantonal awards and cultural dialog.

The KKL Luzern is financed by additional lottery proceeds and a guarantee from the canton for the roof renovation. In the case of the expansion of the Special Purpose Association for Large Cultural Enterprises and Measures for Independent Cultural Activities, this will be achieved by increasing the Education and Culture Department's (BKD) share of lottery funds by CHF 1.48 million or by redistributing CHF 500,000 within the BKD.
 

"It's actually amazing: many larger and smaller choir formations have been singing ambitious concert programs for years and decades without ever coming into contact with another choir - let alone making music together," comments Christoph Cajöri on the initiative. The choirs, as different as they may be, could learn a lot from each other. It is precisely the exchange of ideas, observing and listening to each other that broadens the choir's horizons and gives them new ideas, says the musical director of the Zurich Male Voice Choir convinced.

Aim and purpose of the Swiss Federation Europa Cantat The main aim of the Federation is to foster cultural exchange between choirs from different regions in joint concerts and to promote children's and youth singing in particular. As a member of the federation, the Männerchor Zürich wants to use the choir meeting to bring together different types of choir formations musically and personally and to convey the same thing to the audience in different ways: their love of choral singing. For this reason, the Audite Nova Choir (conductor: Johannes Meister) from Zug, the HeartKor | ensemble (conducted by Lisa Appenzeller), the choirboys of the St. Ursenkatrale Solothurn (Andreas Reize) and the Team choir Jona (conductor: Max Aeberli) has invited four choir formations with very different repertoires. The audience can therefore look forward to an exciting program performed by a total of 250 singers.

In 2013, the Männerchor Zürich performed at the Kreuzkirche as part of the first Midsummer Choral Fireworks together with three other Europa Cantat choirs from Basel, Zurich and Graubünden.

Saturday, June 21, 2014, 5 p.m., Ref. Kirche auf der Egg in Zurich-Wollishofen. Admission is free, collection to cover expenses.

Weblink to the program: http://maennerchor.ch/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/MCZ-Mittsommer-2014.pdf
 

According to the Swiss music database Musinfo, Briner studied German and musicology at the conservatory and the University of Zurich from 1943 to 1952, including one year with Paul Hindemith. He was a trustee of the Hindemith Foundation from 1968 and its president from 1986 to 1998.

He worked with Rolf Liebermann at Radio Zurich for two years. From 1955 to 1964, he taught in the Department of Music at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (USA). From 1964 to 1988 he was the NZZ's features editor for music and musicology.

His main areas of work were the life and work of Paul Hindemith, modern music since 1880, composition in Switzerland and the history of music in Zurich.

A detailed appraisal by NZZ editor Peter Hagmann can be found at www.nzz.ch/aktuell/feuilleton/uebersicht/der-wissenschafter-als-kritiker-1.18317627

It was Christoph Schlingensief's last great lifelong dream: with an opera village in Africa, the theater and filmmaker wanted to create a cultural meeting place that would bring life and art together.

After a school for 300 children, a second step is now being taken to open an infirmary in poor Burkina Faso. It offers first aid to around 5,000 people from the surrounding villages, and up to 20 children a month are to be born here.

A doctor, a dentist, a pharmacist, two nurses and two housekeepers will work in the infirmary. They will be provided and paid by the local government. The concept for the approximately 800 square meter building was once again designed by the award-winning architect Francis Keré, who Schlingensief was able to win over for the project at an early stage. The son of a Burkinabe chief, he has already developed a fascinating natural cooling concept for several schools in Africa.

Christoph Schlingensief witnessed the laying of the foundation stone for the village about an hour's drive from the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou in February 2010 - already severely marked by his illness. A few months later, he died of lung cancer at the age of 49.

The theme of "longing" focuses on a world that one imagines in one's head, writes the AKS. Human longing as an emotional, inner movement can release poetic and imaginative energy and open up possibilities that are directed towards other people, other places, times and other living conditions.

Artists and organizers from the fields of music, dance, literature, theater, performance, film and visual arts, as well as producers of thematic exhibitions who feel addressed by the topic, are invited to submit projects. The "Sehnsucht" project will run from April 18 to May 29, 2016 in the cantons of Central Switzerland (Uri, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Schwyz and Lucerne).

The deadline for submitting project ideas is Friday, October 17, 2014. The projects supported by Sehnsucht will be announced on November 30, 2014. The projects will be selected by the expert jury of the "Sehnsucht" cultural project.

More info: www.aks-stiftung.ch/projekt/sehnsucht

The American National Band Association NBA has been awarding an annual prize since 1977 to promote high-quality brass music. Oliver Waespi is only the second European to receive the award since its inception, after Philip Sparke.

According to the Musinfo database on Swiss music, Oliver Waespi studied composition at the Musikhochschule Zürich with Gerald Bennett and Andreas Nick, as well as at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

His music has been performed in many European countries as well as in Australia, Japan, Singapore and the USA, including at the Swiss Tonkünstlerfest, the George Enescu Festival and various WASBE World Conferences. The numerous performers include renowned symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles, soloists, choirs and many renowned wind ensembles.
 

According to the canton's official press release, 53-year-old Madeleine Herzog studied German language and literature, art history, philosophy and literary criticism in Zurich and Berlin. She worked as a research assistant and lecturer at the German Department of the University of Zurich, as a dramaturge and later as head dramaturge at the Theater St. Gallen before taking over as head of the City of St. Gallen's Department of Culture in 2005.

She also chairs the literary policy working group of the national cultural dialog and is a board member of the Städtekonferenz Kultur. In addition, Madeleine Herzog has acquired knowledge in the field of cultural management in various courses. She can look back on a broad range of experience in the field of cultural policy and cultural promotion.

Madeleine Herzog takes up her new post on October 1. She replaces Susanna Tanner, who is leaving the Culture department after 17 years.

You can listen to music at home. But it sounds different live, especially this expansive Le Temps Mode d'emploicomposed by Philippe Manoury. The fantastic pianists Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher play at the front and their parts come from loudspeakers at the back with a time delay. The virtual and the real merge to create an impressive spatial soundscape full of bursting energy. Philippe Manoury, born in 1952 in Tulle, France, is very present at this year's Wittener Tage. As part of the composer portrait dedicated to him, this piano work will be accompanied by orchestral Funeral marches and a string quartet called Melencolia (d'après Dürer)which is inspired by Albrecht Dürer's famous copperplate engraving from 1514. In the work premiered in Witten Le Temps Mode d'emploi the tonal opulence was impressive, in Melencolia Manoury wrote very finely chiseled music. Structured by bell tones, new, interesting soundscapes emerge again and again. Tension is guaranteed - Manoury keeps it, almost casually, for over 40 minutes.

Gifts and Greetings

Such delicate pieces can only be adequately developed when top-class performers play them. Irvine Arditti, Ashot Sargsyan, Ralf Ehlers and Lucas Fels are among them. With all their almost provocatively relaxed mastery, one sometimes forgets the enormous difficulties of the works. In Manoury's Melencolia it becomes clear once again why the Arditti String Quartet (with changing line-ups) has enriched the contemporary music scene for 40 years. There is no such thing as unplayability for the "Ardittis". They are always in control and certainly never lack presence, radiance and energy. The 40th anniversary of the quartet was the occasion for a special party for Harry Vogt, artistic director of the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik. 14 composers sent the quartet presents in the form of five-minute miniatures. The performance of the "little pieces" was met with a small smile from the experts, but musical humor is not the forte of New Music. The laborious events under the so casual title Gifts and Greetings revealed a considerable "Beethovenbartókardittiangst factor", as the young composer Philipp Mainz once put it. Indeed, string quartet composition is no child's birthday party - especially when such a constant companion of the Ardittis as Brian Ferneyhough appears as a guest. The New Complexity, for which Ferneyhough became famous (and infamous), obviously leaves little room for anything like a cheerful musical serenade.

Audible research

Brian Ferneyhough secured himself a place in music history during his lifetime. The Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi only achieved this after his death in 1988. Reviled as a dilettante on the one hand and revered as a demigod on the other, Scelsi is still a source of controversy today. The release of tapes from the Scelsi archive has now provided new material for discussion. 600 hours of music and speech material have emerged: Parts of an autobiography spoken on tape, piano improvisations, radio broadcasts, and recordings of ondiolas, precursors of the synthesizer. As part of a project by the Research Department of the Basel University of Music, musicologists are analyzing the tapes. At the same time, there is a form of audible artistic research presented in Witten. Both composers and improvisers, including the Swiss composer Michael Pelzel, are exploring Scelsi. In his Sculture di suono - in memoriam Giacinto Scelsi he concentrates on the distinctive "floating world" created by microtonal constrictions. The Ensemble Klangforum Wien gives a fantastic world premiere of this highly interesting work, which also skillfully integrates Scelsi's "flexible organ sonority" (Pelzel) in the form of excessive sequences of thirds and sixths.
The new looseness in dealing with the traditional is one reason for an extremely successful Witten year with 25 world premieres and four German premieres. Working on chamber music is worthwhile thanks to outstanding composers such as Philippe Manoury, but also thanks to top-class specialist ensembles such as the Ardittis, the Klangforum Wien, the Freiburg Ensemble and the Trio Catch, which has just performed in Witten. The GrauSchumacher piano duo came to Witten for the first time. They would obviously like to return to this laboratory of modernism. After three packed days full of good to very good music, they are not the only ones.

Nobody really knows how many people sing together on the continent, in which countries which repertoire is cultivated, how much time is devoted to singing and so on, writes the Schott publishing house. These and other questions on artistic, demographic and economic aspects as well as statistics and information from choral associations should ultimately help to create a picture of a singing Europe.

The publication of the results with a comparison between the different countries is planned for 2015. The aim of the project is also to stimulate a Europe-wide debate about singing and to promote mutual awareness and familiarization between singing groups from different countries.

There are now almost 700 responses from Slovenia alone, providing information about the whole country. Anyone who belongs to a choir or singing group, whether as a singer, conductor or board member, is invited to complete the short questionnaire on www.singingeurope.org in his own language.