Philippe Bach has been chief conductor of the Zug Sinfonietta since the 2009/2010 season. He will conduct his last Zug concert as chief conductor on February 21, 2014 at the Theater Casino Zug.

Under his direction, the Zug Sinfonietta has developed into a homogeneous chamber orchestra that performs at a high level, the ensemble continues. In addition to its own concert series in the canton of Zug and concerts at the Theater- und Musikgesellschaft Zug, it has been a regular guest at festivals and event organizers throughout Switzerland.

Concert recordings by SRF 2 Kultur radio and collaborations with national and international soloists underline the positive joint development.

The expert jury decided in favor of the nominated band in a "very close election" shortly before the award ceremony. According to the official media release, jury spokesperson Jean Zuber from Swiss Music Export emphasized that in the end "the really good pop songs on the band's new CD decided Sheila She Loves You as the winner". The Audience Award, which was determined by online voting, was awarded to the rapper Black Tiger.

Before the Pop Prize, the BusinessSupport SME prize was awarded to the Basel record label Lux-Noise. The award is endowed with 12,000 Swiss francs and was presented by Bruno Marty, spokesman for the BusinessSupport jury and Managing Director of the Swiss Performers' Cooperative.

The Rockförderverein der Region Basel (RFV) has been in existence for 18 years. It works under a service contract with the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft. It organizes competitions for bands (newcomers and professionals) and advises bands, companies, organizers and administrations.

With the Cantonal Cultural Promotion Ordinance (KKFV), the cantonal government has adopted the second part of the implementing legislation for the Cultural Promotion Act. The KKFV regulates the joint subsidization of cultural institutions by the canton and the municipalities more clearly. The list of cultural institutions to be jointly subsidized, separately for each region, will be added later as an annex to the ordinance.

The provisions on the organization of cantonal cultural promotion, which had already been enacted on 1 January 2013, were incorporated into the KKFV. This means that nothing has changed for the cultural commissions or for the canton's representation on the governing bodies of cultural institutions.

The ordinance names five cultural institutions of national importance, which only the canton, but not the municipalities, are legally obliged to co-finance. These are the Zentrum Paul Klee, the Bern Art Museum, the Alpine Museum in Bern, the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum and the Artists' Exchange in Thun. The Bern Historical Museum would also fall into this category. However, because the municipalities of the Bern-Mittelland region and the City of Bern in particular are to remain obliged to co-finance it, it has been placed in the category of cultural institutions "of at least regional importance".

The ordinance stipulates that in the case of jointly subsidized cultural institutions, the local municipalities are primarily responsible for drawing up the service contracts. However, the municipalities in a region decide for themselves how they want to divide their share of the subsidies among themselves.

The requirements for contributions to school and community libraries are specified in the ordinance. Libraries must be politically and denominationally neutral in order to be eligible for cantonal contributions. The other provisions basically continue the previous ordinance on the promotion of school and community libraries from 1988, which will be repealed at the same time.
 

The fixed-term subsidy contracts with 18 cultural institutions expire at the end of 2013. The application for contract extensions has been postponed due to cost-cutting discussions. The forthcoming renewal is to take place on an interim basis for 17 institutions; separate provisions will be issued for the Kunsthalle.

The contracts will be adopted unchanged. The cuts to individual subsidy contributions are not the subject of the application. However, they already contain a clause in the current version that allows the city to make cuts should it be forced to do so due to the financial situation.

In view of additional cantonal contributions and the strained financial situation, the city council considers it justifiable, writes the city, to reduce its own contributions to the Kunstverein, the Fotomuseum and the Kunsthalle by a total of CHF 200,000 for 2014 and until 2016 at the latest.
 

The company was founded in 1807 by the French composer Ignaz Pleyel. His customers included Frédéric Chopin and Claude Debussy.

Until recently, around twenty pianos were still being produced annually at a price of at least 40,000 euros - by 14 employees, as Europe Online Magazine writes. The reason for the closure was "continuing losses and insufficient capacity utilization".

With the free campaign, the group is trying to "carve a hole in the hardened rock of the music industry", they write themselves on the We make it platform. Supporters receive the work signed in advance, in an unusual form. The music may be freely copied and distributed everywhere.

On the website thebiancastory.com it is now available to download free of charge. It will be sold as a CD at cost price. In addition, every concertgoer will receive the new CD as a gift on the upcoming tour.

"In order to liberate the music", the group made the costs transparent: production, manufacturing, distribution, communication, the record company's share and their own earnings (3000 euros) were made public. 

Born in Worb, Furer studied violin, school singing and choral conducting at the Bern Conservatory. Studies at the University of Bern completed his education.

He was principal violist in the Bern Chamber Orchestra and violinist in the Bern Symphony Orchestra as well as in the chamber ensemble of Radio Bern. According to Musinfo, Furer was responsible for the musical education of pupils at the Marzili Municipal Seminary in Bern from 1952 to 1988.

Furer received a Swiss Pro-Arte Foundation Prize in 1966 and the Grand Music Prize of the Canton of Berne in 1984.

According to the University of Zurich, Laade's main concern was to scientifically document the music cultures of indigenous population groups around the world, some of which were under threat. He retired in 1990 after being appointed titular professor in 1980.

He documented Corsican folk songs in a pioneering and exemplary manner. He also studied the musical cultures of Lapland, Oceania, Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and other parts of the world.

The tenders were launched in the Mole Antonelliana in Turin, home of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, on whose dome the work Il volo dei numeri (2000) by Mario Merz is permanently installed.

The prize was launched exactly ten years after the death of Mario Merz. Initiated by the Fondazione Merz in collaboration with a jury of experts and supported by an international honorary committee, it is awarded every two years. The music prize, supported by a collaboration between the Associazione per la Musica De Sono, Turin and the Zurich University of the Arts, honors young contemporary compositions.

The nominations are made by music institutions, performers, critics and personalities from the world of music. The compositions of the five finalists will be performed in public. The winner will be commissioned to write a composition for a string orchestra, which will be performed in a museum setting, thus combining the two arts and sides of the Mario Merz Prize.

The jury for the music prize consists of Thomas Demenga (cellist and composer), Dieter
Ammann (composer), Alexander Lonquich (pianist), Willy Merz and the audience of the performance.

More info: mariomerzprize.org

In its November issue, the French magazine "Diapason" awarded the young original sound ensemble's album its highest rating.

"Spicy" contains music with exotic coloring, on violins by Jacobus Stainer in the old scale. Martial pieces such as "Die Türkenschlacht bei Wien" by Andreas Anton Schmelzer or a "Turcaria" by Johann Joseph Fux are interpreted.

The place has something magical about it. Rheinau is located in the Zurich wine country near Schaffhausen, directly on the Rhine and on the border with Germany. You drive through the pretty village with its old timber-framed houses down to the monastery square on the Rhine: from here, a bridge leads to the island with the massive monastery complex.
Major construction work is currently underway on two three-storey wings. The rooms have been empty since 2000, and ideas for their use - training center, museum, boarding school, resort hotel - failed due to a lack of investors. Now a music hotel with 16 modern rehearsal rooms of various sizes, plus 63 guest rooms and a kitchen with dining room for musicians who want to retreat here for a few days of intensive rehearsals with their choir, orchestra or ensemble is being built in this magnificent listed building. This is made possible by the Swiss Music Island Rheinau Foundation. It was founded in 2009 by Christoph Blocher and is investing 2.7 million francs. The conversion cost the Canton of Zurich 28.5 million.

Sound
The view of the Rhine through the windows is fantastic, the monastery complex is built directly on the water. You are standing in a monastery cell, which has now been converted into a beautifully designed hotel room with a wet room, and the river flows mightily past: The motto here is to pause, take a deep breath, the peace is intense in this seclusion, the light, the cultural landscape and nature are unique.

But how quiet is it here when several ensembles want to rehearse at the same time? "We called in an acoustician: Eckhard Kahle from Karlsruhe, who also worked on the KKL Luzern," explains Patrick McEvily from the Musikinsel Foundation during our tour. "On the one hand, the rooms have to be so well insulated that the ensembles don't disturb each other. For this reason, it is not possible to rehearse amplified music here. On the other hand, the acoustics in the historic hall have to be good for music. To achieve this, we have had fixed and mobile acoustic elements made that can be attached to the wall."

Music hall

David Philip Hefti is now one of the established Swiss composers of the younger generation. His multifaceted oeuvre is excellently documented both editorially and discographically.

The Klangscherben - Mosaic for violoncello solo was commissioned by the solo cellist of the Tonhalle Orchestra, Thomas Grossenbacher, in spring 2011. The content of the work refers to the cello concerto written in 2010 Counter sound. The composer writes: "Entire passages are torn out of their context and reformed, turned into shards, as it were, and glued together again. These combinations result in a colorful mosaic that allows the original motifs to appear in a new light."

This intention is also reflected in the correspondingly designed musical text, whose individual sections are presented in an almost collage-like manner. The very demanding, approximately 10-minute work offers the cellist a (tonally) colorful, varied palette of musical and technical tasks.

David Philip Hefti: Klangscherben, mosaic for violoncello solo, GM 1876, Fr. 15.80, Edition Kunzelmann, Adliswil 2012

Michael Töpel, born in 1958, studied composition, piano, music theory and musicology in his native city of Bremen and in Lübeck. He has received several prizes for composition. In addition to his own works, he has also written piano reductions and edited works, including first editions by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Distler and Jean Barraqué.

The present work, created in the Swiss mountains Capriccio for violoncello solo was a contribution to the anniversary concert on September 22, 2012 for the 175th anniversary of the Merseburg publishing house. It consists of exactly 175 bars and is composed in a moderately modern tonal language. The music is humorous, with a burlesque, dance-like rhythm. The composition is appropriate for the instruments, effective and shows a dynamic rich in contrast. The technical difficulties are easy to master.

The Capriccio is suitable for concert use and can also be a welcome introduction to newer music for advanced young cellists.

Michael Töpel: Capriccio, for violoncello solo, EM 2175, € 8.00, Merseburger Verlag, Kassel 2012

Since the universities of applied sciences have been called upon to conduct their own research, the world of science has been enriched by a number of projects. Interpretation research is a particularly popular area, which is also being worked on at Bern University of the Arts. All of the relevant projects currently underway at the Conference Improvise - Interpret presented to the public and discussed with external guests: Richard Wagner in historical performance practice, pianistic improvisations from Beethoven's time, the work of Alfred Wälchli, a new, sensory-dynamic double bass clarinet as well as historically informed didactics of music theory based on Peter Cornelius' work. The five symposia spread over two weekends featured a number of parallel events, which led to unfortunate overlaps. Those interested in Wagner could hardly hear any lectures on piano improvisations. Among other things, Giorgio Sanguinetti discussed the partimento in Beethoven's time, Michael Lehner looked at Carl Czerny's model compositions as a guide to fantasizing, Sonja Wagenbichler reported on pianistic competitions in 18th and 19th century Vienna. Petra Somlai and Leonardo Miucci contributed to the practical relevance of the topic in lunchtime and evening concerts and demonstrated very different styles of (partially) improvised music on fortepianos.

The orchestral musician's perspective
Also at the symposium Richard Wagner historically. Interpretation practice for the premiere of The Flying Dutchman in 1843 the close connection between science and practice was always palpable. The very idea of making the orchestral parts of the premiere in Dresden the starting point for the study reveals the perspective of an orchestral musician. It comes from Kai Köpp, who currently holds an SNSF professorship at the HKB. Köpp is a musicologist as well as a violist and contributed to the 2005 recording of the Dutchmen in historical performance practice under the direction of Bruno Weil.
The Dresden orchestral parts, which have not yet been studied, contain considerably more practical information than the autograph score due to the rehearsal practice of the time: Wagner did not rehearse his opera with the singers with piano accompaniment, as is customary today, but with a string quartet - and this is how the actual "last-hand version" was created.

If the quartet rehearsal parts have also been preserved for other operas, this opens up a large field of research, Köpp stated. The philological problem of how to date the sometimes diverse entries of parts used in operas over decades must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In any case, interpretation research is moving towards studies of individual performance situations. The great regional differences and the rapid changes in interpretation practice make general statements about the performance practice of a particular period almost obsolete.

Drawing from the premiere of the "Flying Dutchman"

wikimedia commons

Tempo, line-up, instruments
A real paradigm shift in historical performance practice would also be the investigations into the metronome markings in Wagner's Dutchman Thomas Seedorf stated, following on from the lecture by Bernese piano teacher Manuel Bärtsch. From now on, the focus will no longer be on particularly fast tempi, but on particularly slow ones. Whether and how the sometimes extremely slow tempi notated by Wagner can be realized at all - for example in the overture, which, with a dotted half note = 72, is far removed from the frenzy of today's interpretations - and how this additional time can be filled on stage, will have to be shown in future practical experiments.

Tobias Pfleger showed the difficulties Wagner had with the Dresden court orchestra, which was conservative in many respects, such as the disputes over authority with the concertmaster: pictures of the Dresden orchestra set-up at the time showed a conductor standing directly behind the prompter's box, facing the stage and thus giving the singers the beat. Behind him was the orchestra, which played towards the stage. The concertmaster took the beat from the conductor and passed it on to the orchestra, and therefore saw himself as the actual conductor of the orchestra.

The lecture by Bernhard Hentrich from Dresden seemed like the presentation of a crime script: The string instruments of the Dresden court orchestra in Wagner's time. What Hentrich uncovered is so explosive that he has so far avoided presenting his findings in Dresden: It was not the devastating air raids of 1945 that made the valuable instruments of the court chapel untraceable, but the confusing circumstances of the post-war period. His research into all the surviving inventory lists suggests that quite a few musicians and administrative staff wanted to "save cultural assets from Bolshevism". They sometimes exchanged cheap replicas for valuable instruments without making a note of it. Anyone researching the instruments used by Wagner during his time in Dresden today may come across such a replica instrument - and could draw fatal conclusions for performance practice.

Prefer traditional?
200 years of Wagner - ready for historical performance practice? was the provocative title of the panel discussion on the first evening of the symposium. The current phenomena to which this multi-perspective title refers became clear again and again in the course of the symposium. On the one hand, there is the general - not only Wagner-related - anniversary actionism. Certainly, the Bern University of the Arts is also using Richard Wagner's 200th birthday as an opportunity to present the results of this research project in a concert performance of the Dutchmen to present their findings. On November 22, students will put the findings into practice and make them accessible to a wide audience.

But the meandering movement of historically informed performance practice is also addressed here. It is true that today there are hardly any calls for historical performance practice to be primarily concerned with forgotten repertoire. However, the necessity of reconstructing historical circumstances even in the case of an oeuvre such as Wagner's, which has had an unbroken performance tradition since its creation, has rarely been recognized to date. Interpretations such as the concert performance of the Parsifal under Thomas Hengelbrock, which caused a sensation in Dortmund, Essen and Madrid at the beginning of this year, and about which Peter Tilling, Hengelbrock's assistant at the time (and now deputy general music director at the Nuremberg State Theater), gave an impressive account at the symposium, remain the exception.

And finally, the question of the openness of musicologists is also implicitly raised here. Orchestral parts, metronome markings etc., such as those studied by the Bern Wagner project, have so far been neglected by philologically oriented historical musicology; their existence has often been relegated to the footnotes of complete critical editions, where they are difficult for practical musicians to find. University musicology would do well not to regard such practical performance research as marginal or competitive, but as an enrichment.

Image: The Flying Dutchman (Uvejr i Skærgården. "Den flyvende hollænder", Dalarö), painting by August Strindberg, 1892, Copenhagen State Art Museum, photographed by www.smk.dk and soeg.smk.dk, wikimedia commons

The focus of the first DVD - after an overview of elementary music and dance pedagogy EMTP - is dedicated to reflection in the form of a theme-centered summary of interviews with experts and discussion rounds with home residents, a caregiver and students of the Carl-Orff-Institute. The book concludes with insights into the lives of two residents who took part in the weekly musical program for many years.

The discussion of the questions "Why music? What is the intrinsic value of music?", always in relation to scientific findings and the importance of emotionality. The connection between music and long-term memory ("well-known songs are even stored with several verses until old age") is addressed as well as the psychosomatic effect of music, i.e. the questions: "What significance did music have in earlier life, what effect does music have today?". It is shown how EMPT adapts to people's life stories and draws conclusions for practice. Statements from senior citizens explain the practical relevance: "Music is accessible to everyone. Music lifts the mood. You can feel that you are alive. Everyone is who they are." In this sense, music is part of biography work, part of rewriting one's own history. But it's also about learning new things and being challenged.

The strong reference to the importance of music in life lays the foundations for training and further education at the Carl Orff Institute in the field of music geragogy and clearly defines the difference to elementary music education: It is not education that is required, but education that takes biography into account without staging an infantilization of music.

DVD 2 is dedicated to practice and, after an introduction, shows many examples, divided into three core areas with a further division into 15 subject areas. The practical examples are aesthetically profound, the selection of songs and pieces of music is varied and the materials are balanced. The lecturer Christine Schönherr and the participating students impress with their performative and professional musicality. This basic artistic quality, characterized by aesthetic design, respect and theoretical understanding, provides a unique basis for all participants to join in.