Otto Tausk has been Chief Conductor of the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra and Theater St. Gallen since 2012/2013. As an "inspiring artistic personality who inspires audiences and orchestral musicians alike", Otto Tausk has already "made a significant contribution to the regional and international appeal of the St. Gallen orchestra and music theater" in his first two years in office.

In the 2013/2014 season, Tausk most recently conducted eight symphony concerts in St. Gallen and accompanied the orchestra to guest performances in Switzerland and the Netherlands. In music theater, the productions of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Die tote Stadt" that he conducted were most popular, according to the orchestra's press release.

The federal government wants to focus its cultural policy on three central axes of action: Cultural participation, social cohesion and creation and innovation. The Federal Council also wants to improve cooperation between the Confederation, cantons, cities and municipalities in order to achieve a coherent cultural policy at national level.

The Federal Council is requesting a framework credit of CHF 894.6 million to implement the Confederation's cultural policy, which corresponds to an average annual growth rate of 3.4%. Following the consultation procedure, the period of validity of the cultural dispatch is to be extended by one year until 2020 in order to ensure that it coincides with the multi-year funding decisions in other areas.

Interested parties are invited to comment on the consultation draft by September 19, 2014. Once the comments have been evaluated, the cultural dispatch will be submitted to the Federal Council for approval towards the end of the year. It will be discussed by Parliament in 2015 and enter into force in January 2016.

More info: www.bak.admin.ch/?lang=de&webcode=d_14467_de
 

According to the jury, Gary Berger's music creates an organic relationship to electronics without making it seem like an exotic addition. The composer consistently places the possibilities of electronics at the center of his work. In doing so, he demonstrates a virtuoso approach to the new technologies. His repertoire includes compositions for large ensembles and solo instruments as well as tape works.

Born in 1967, Berger beat off competition from 100 other candidates. He studied percussion at the Musikhochschule Zürich and composition with Julio Estrada in Paris and with Gerald Bennett and Daniel Glaus at the Hochschule Musik und Theater Zürich.

Between 1998 and 2010, he founded and directed various electroacoustic music projects such as the "Notstrom" ensemble and the "Generator" concert series at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He has been a lecturer in electroacoustic music at the ZHdK since 2001. He also works as a freelance composer in Zurich.

The Fondation Suisa Prize honors outstanding achievements in the field of music and aims to support the prizewinners and make them known at home and abroad. The prize is awarded in a different category each year.

The jury for the orchestra, instrumental or vocal ensemble and electronics category consists of Xavier Dayer (Suisa President), Peter Kraut (Deputy Head of the Music Department at the Bern University of the Arts), Peter Révai (musicologist, journalist), Daniel Weissberg (composer, lecturer at the Bern University of the Arts) and Urs Schnell (Director of the Fondation Suisa).

According to a press release issued by the canton, the institutions were judged on their importance and appeal in terms of visitor numbers, the originality and independence of their offerings, their contribution to cultural diversity in the canton and their accessibility for the population.

There were two lists to choose from: The "red" list included institutions that tend to program more unconventional, urban (in-house) productions. The "blue" list comprised institutions that tend to be more popular with audiences from the surrounding communities.

The consultation resulted in a clear majority in favor of the "blue" variant, writes the canton. The cantonal government has therefore decided to place a strong emphasis on the diversity of cultural offerings and the population's access to cultural performances.

Thirteen cultural institutions have been included in the definitive list, which in future will receive a maximum of 50 percent from the local municipality, a fixed 40 percent from the canton and at least 10 percent from the other municipalities in the region.

The list includes BeJazz Köniz, Camerata Bern, Bernisches Historisches Museum, Konzert Theater Bern, Kornhausbibliothek Bern, Theater an der Effingerstrasse Bern, Kulturhof Schloss Köniz, Reberhaus Bolligen, Bern Chamber Orchestra, La Cappella Bern, Buskers Bern, Kornhausforum Bern and the Hunziken Mill in Rubigen.
 

In contrast to the agreements with the three major labels (Sony, Warner and Universal), an agreement with the independent music companies is still pending, writes the VUT. As the independent music companies, with their market share of 30 percent, supply a large proportion of the content for providers such as YouTube, VUT expects YouTube to enter into further negotiations in order to reach a fair solution.

According to WIN and VUT members, the terms of the new YouTube contract are "extremely unfavorable and non-negotiable". At the same time, the remuneration is below the prices paid by other streaming services such as Spotify. The VUT therefore emphasizes its demand that music services must not discriminate against independents.

In recent days, WIN has been negotiating with YouTube to find a solution, so far without success.
 

"Klassenmusizieren" is a form of teaching that was initiated in the 2007/08 school year. Currently, over seventy school classes, i.e. around 1500 pupils in Zurich, benefit from the program. It is run in close cooperation between the Musikschule Konservatorium Zürich (MKZ) and Zurich's elementary school, which provide teaching staff, sheet music and classrooms. In addition, every schoolchild receives an instrument on loan from MKZ free of charge.

To ensure that pupils continue to have access to music in class in the future, a benefit concert is held every two years for the benefit of "Klassenmusizieren". Previous concerts have been performed by Kurt Aeschbacher, Heidi Happy, Pepe Lienhard and Howard Griffiths.

This year, it is the Zurich musician Bligg who has been rehearsing with the class orchestras in the run-up to the big performance. Together they will play three Bligg songs that have been specially arranged for this concert. Eva Nidecker will host the concert evening. City Councillor Gerold Lauber, head of the city's Department of Education and Sport, is the political patron.

Info:
Benefit concert for "Klassenmusizieren" at the Zurich Volkshaus, Tuesday, May 27, 201. Concert starts at 7.30 p.m., doors open at 6.45 p.m.
 

The law currently in force is regarded as a pure subsidy law without cultural policy guidelines, as provided for in the cantonal constitution of 1984. After the Government Council drew up a cultural mission statement, an initial draft of the Cultural Subsidies Act (2009) was revised and supplemented. The revision was carried out "on the basis of the findings and objectives for the leitbild_kultur.bl 2013-2017 from the TAGSATZUNG kultur.bl in May 2011".

According to the canton, the current draft law represents a clear optimization of the current law in the area of cantonal cultural policy and promotion. It closes the gap between the cultural paragraph of the cantonal constitution and the cultural promotion already in place. 

The draft also covers public institutions of the canton's basic cultural offerings: the cantonal library, cantonal museum, cantonal archaeology, the Roman city of Augusta Raurica and the publishing house of the canton of Basel-Landschaft. It also regulates the distribution of roles between the canton and the municipalities, which is indicated by cultural policy, as well as the special importance of schools as a cultural mediation platform. 

Every five years, the jury awards this prize to forward-looking musicological dissertations that either deal with Dutch music or were submitted and defended at a Dutch university. Pedro Memelsdorff was honored for his research as part of his dissertation The Filiation and Transmission of Instrumental Polyphony in Late Medieval Italy: The Codex Faenza 117 was awarded. In it, he analyzes completely new aspects of this central manuscript from the 15th century. In his laudatory speech, jury president Francis Maes from the University of Ghent called the dissertation "one of the most important books on late medieval music written in the last ten years".

Memelsdorff's doctoral thesis is divided into three sections: The first examines the physical characteristics of the manuscript and reveals the process of its creation and compilation, as well as the traces left on it by medieval users. The second section traces the history of each individual piece of the older layer of the manuscript by collating the 50 intabulated instrumental diminutions preserved in the Codex Faenza with vocal versions of other manuscripts for the first time and interpreting them in terms of genre history. Finally, in the third part, Faenza 117 and two manuscripts newly discovered by Memelsdorff are compared. One, which can be dated to around 1400-1420, sheds completely new light on the instrumental diminutions of Faenza's older layer; the other, dated to the 1480s, contains the first concordances to Faenza's younger layers and provides information about their social and cultural background

Trio Rafale impressed the jury with their rendition of Schubert's second piano trio. Second place in the piano trio and quartet category went to the German Notos Quartet and third place to the French Trio Atanssov.

The competition is held every three years in the string quartet and piano trio/quartet categories. The Romanian Arcadia Quartet won in the string quartet category. The first prizes are endowed with 25,000 Swiss francs each and enable a concert tour of Japan.

The Rafale Trio, consisting of Maki Wiederkehr (piano), Daniel Meller (violin) and Flurin Cuonz (cello), has been coached by Eckart Heiligers at the Hochschule in Zurich and at master classes in Ochsenhausen since September 2009.

It has already won several prestigious prizes. These include 1st prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition (July 2011), 2nd prize at the Concours international de musique de chambre in Lyon (April 2011) and 1st prize at the Concours national pour Trio instrumental Prix Geraldine Whittaker of the Jeunesses Musicales de Suisse (2010).

The jury - Co Streiff, Gregor Frei and Michael Bonanomi - were impressed right from the start by the group's two wind players, in particular the new discovery Gileno Santana on trumpet. The band is moving into uncharted musical territory and there is a "sense of urgency at the moment, based on the uncertainty of what will happen next", according to the statement.

At the same time, however, the formation, a "promising international band that has what it takes to play the world's stages far beyond national borders", relies on the strong confidence in the improvisational skills of each individual musician. They are independent and different characters who, through their openness and willingness to take risks, know how to drive the Spartan compositions forward step by step.

The BeJazz sponsorship award is aimed at local and national musicians who want to overcome the financial hurdles of cross-border musical collaboration. The focus is on exchanges with musicians from abroad.

More info: www.bejazz.ch/transnational/

The reason for the delay: a dramaturgically important and musically rich quintet in the first act of the opera La Gazzettabetween the Barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola based on a model by Goldoni, was long considered lost. Two years ago, it was found again in Palermo. After an initial production in Boston in April 2013, the Swiss premiere of the original version will follow in St. Moritz in June 2014 and in Basel in August under the direction of Eva Buchmann (director) and Jan Willem de Vriend (conductor).
 

St. Moritz, Kulm Hotel: June 28 to July 12, 2014 - advance booking: www.opera-stmoritz.ch

Basel, Volkshaus: August 29 to September 6, 2014. advance booking: www.opera-basel.ch
 

To this end, the publishers Bärenreiter and J.B. Metzler have agreed on a long-term collaboration with Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), the operator of the world's largest bibliographic database of musical literature, starting in 2014. The MGG Online will offer two things: the unchanged content of the print edition from 1994-2008 and, in addition, an updated version of the MGG Online updated version with corrections and revisions, including new articles where necessary. From 2017, the entire content of the famous music encyclopaedia will be available to users in a newly created database. Regular subsequent updates will ensure that subscribers to the MGG Online the music encyclopedia MGG as a reference work for music research in the future.

The publishers Bärenreiter and J.B. Metzler are still responsible for the contents of the MGG responsible. RILM is contributing its expertise to the development and creation of an online database, including comprehensive research tools. Prof. Dr. Laurenz Lütteken (Zurich) has been appointed general editor. Together with the editorial team set up by the publishers and an international advisory board, he will oversee all updates to the MGG Online design the content.

The abbreviation MGG has stood for the reference work for half a century Music in the past and present. Founded by Friedrich Blume, who headed the first edition (published between 1949 and 1986), the second edition of the MGG edited by Ludwig Finscher. It was published between 1994 and 2008 and brings together all the essentials about music in 29 volumes and 25,000 pages. It contains around 20,000 articles written by over 3,500 authors from 55 countries.

Instruments that were purchased before February 25, 2014 and have a valid CITES certificate can now be imported if the ivory used for them was legally acquired before February 26, 1976. However, the resale of such instruments within the USA may be subject to further restrictions.

The regulations serve to protect wild elephants. The League of American Orchestras wants to continue the dialogue with the authorities in Washington in order to achieve further relief for traveling musicians.
 

According to the association, more than every second music school in Germany offers special music lessons for the disabled, writes the German Press Agency, also in cooperation with special schools or institutions for the disabled. Around 8100 disabled children, young people and adults are able to make music themselves. Their number is growing continuously.

The Association of German Music Schools (VdM) understands inclusion comprehensively as a general attitude for music school work that welcomes all people, people with disabilities as well as people from other cultures, and also children and young people who are hindered in their musical education by school conditions, explains Ulrich Rademacher, Federal Chairman of the VdM. The Federal Assembly intends to adopt a "Potsdam Declaration" on this tomorrow.

Almost 930 music schools across Germany are affiliated to the Association of German Music Schools. Their facilities are spread across around 4000 locations. A good one million pupils take advantage of their offerings. Around 300 music school directors are gathered in Potsdam.

Eugen M. Dombois was born on Nov. 15, 1931 in Bethel near Bielefeld. His father, Georg Müller, was a well-known teacher. After training as a secondary school teacher (German, music), Dombois studied lute and guitar from 1955-1958 with Walter Gerwig in Cologne, a lutenist who was at the forefront of historical music practice. He then taught at the Nordwestdeutsche Musik-Akademie Detmold and at the same time began a successful international career as a concert artist. Unfortunately, an impairment of his hand forced him to give up public concerts prematurely. In 1962, Paul Sacher appointed him to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he continued his extremely fruitful teaching career until his retirement in 1996. His illustrious list of former students includes Toyohiko Satoh, Hopkinson Smith, Jürgen Hübscher, Paul O'Dette, Rolf Lislevand, Karl-Ernst Schröder (+), Robert Barto, Joachim Held, Peter Croton, Christina Pluhar and many others. He also found a family home in Basel and lived in the city's catchment area until the end.

Eugen M. Dombois had high expectations of his art, which he conveyed to his students with great intensity. He was particularly interested in liberating lute playing from the legacy of the guitar and restoring its specific historical quality. In this way, he succeeded in establishing his class at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis as an international center of lute playing. His critical mind and his polished use of the word made him a consistently stimulating and demanding discussion partner. A speculative essay (together with Véronique Daniels) on an enigmatic Italian dance treatise of the 15th century appeared in the Basel Yearbook for Historical Music Practice 1990 and shows this side of his personality in an impressive way.

Eugen M. Dombois will retain a place of honor in the ancestral gallery of early music and will remain inextricably linked to the revival of historically oriented lute playing. The Musik-Akademie Basel and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis bid farewell with sadness and gratitude to this important musician and teacher, colleague and friend.