The Office of Culture received three applications for the scholarship. After hearings, the expert jury, consisting of the director of the Fribourg site of the Lausanne School of Music HEMU and two experts, finally decided in favor of the pianist Fiona Hengartner from Bulle, emphasizing her great potential, her technical ability and her remarkable interpretative intelligence.

Born in 1990, Fiona Hengartner graduated from the College of the South in Bulle in 2010 with a bilingual baccalaureate certificate. A year earlier, she had already obtained her professional diploma for piano at the Fribourg Conservatory with the grade "excellent". She then continued her studies at the HEMU, where she received her bachelor's degree in 2012 and was awarded the Pisler Prize for her outstanding bachelor's thesis and her excellent bachelor's recital.

Since 2005, Fiona Hengartner has successfully taken part in several competitions and master classes in Switzerland and has made a name for herself with numerous public performances in the canton of Fribourg. Thanks to this scholarship, Fiona Hengartner will be able to continue her studies at the HEMU in order to obtain a Master's degree in pedagogy in 2014.

The Pierre and Renée Glasson Fund for Music, set up in 1995 and administered by the Cantonal Office for Culture, serves to support the activities of musicians from the Canton of Fribourg or the rest of Switzerland who live in the Canton of Fribourg. A scholarship can be awarded from this fund to help finance postgraduate studies at a music college in Switzerland or abroad. The scholarship for 2014 will be announced in October 2013.

The first call for applications is aimed at musicians of any style. The applications submitted will be assessed by a jury of experts. A work grant of CHF 20,000 and a work grant of CHF 10,000 will be awarded.

The work grants are intended to support artists and cultural practitioners directly and on a personal basis. They should be able to engage with an innovative, artistic idea or deepen and develop their artistic skills in a targeted manner.

Applications must be submitted in full to the Nidwalden Office for Culture or the Obwalden Office for Culture and Sport by January 10, 2014 at the latest. The application form can be downloaded at www.nw.ch or www.ow.chsearch term "Werkbeiträge", can be downloaded.

According to the ZHdK press release, the number of students has remained constant compared to recent years. A numerus clausus applies, which means that prospective students undergo a strict admission procedure before they are accepted at the ZHdK.

Of the 738 new students, 317 are starting a Bachelor's degree and 381 a Master's degree in Design (112), Music (290), Art & Media (102), Art Education and Transdisciplinarity (111), Theater and Film (83). 40 people enrolled on a part-time Master of Advanced Studies program.

In 2005, the Zurich University of the Arts had a total of 1142 Bachelor's and 863 Master's students and 578 continuing education students (MAS, CAS, DAS).
 

Once again this year, the departments with by far the most new admissions are
Business (821) and Engineering & Architecture (644), followed by Design & Art (219),
Social work (205) and music (197).

A total of 5821 students are enrolled on a Bachelor's or Master's degree course at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. 44 percent of them come from the cantons of Central Switzerland, while 6 percent come from abroad. The proportion of women is around 42 percent. Across the entire university, the increase in students is 5.5 percent. This means that growth is similar to the previous year.

The newcomers will be officially welcomed at today's opening ceremony at the KKL Lucerne. Guest speakers include Annette Schönhölzer, Director of Art Basel, and Arno Troxler, Director of the Willisau Jazz Festival. In addition, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts Sustainability Prize will be awarded to an outstanding Bachelor's or Master's thesis that deals with sustainability issues and is of great practical value.

"What is this?" This question may have been asked by some people who were confronted with Dieter Meier's art. For example, in Zurich in 1969, when Meier spent five days sitting on the ground in front of the Kunsthaus filling plastic bags with a thousand screws each. Or a year later, when the young Swiss artist asked passers-by in the middle of the boulevard in New York to say the words "Yes" or "No" to him. In return, he gave the volunteers a dollar and a certificate stating that they had just said "Yes" or "No".

Footprint of an artist's life
"What's this all about?", you ask yourself again, in view of the exhibition "In Conversation", which is on show at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau. Why Dieter Meier in an art museum? The dandy with the jacket and neckerchief, who is known as the singer of electro pioneers Yello and has made a name for himself as an author and Zurich restaurant owner with a cattle farm and vineyard in Argentina? Only a few people know that Meier's first steps in the public eye were the happenings described above and that he was involved in art long before he founded Yello at the end of the 1970s.
The first major Swiss museum exhibition on Dieter Meier aims to change this. The 14 rooms contain photographs, depictions of his conceptual art, experimental films, drawings and music videos from the late 1960s to the present day. Meier has also tried his hand at sculpture. The more or less successful results are exhibited, as are newspaper articles and films documenting the reception of his actions. The artist describes the retrospective as an "accidental footprint of life". .

In many artists' biographies, the course is set early on. The first few years after completing their training are decisive for the further course of their career. This is where Pro Helvetia's support for young artists comes in, as it has been given this task with the new Culture Promotion Act: With an age limit of 35, it supports the most talented Swiss artists in the first five years after graduating from an art college or after their first public performance. Pro Helvetia wants to make it easier for them to enter the world of professional art and support them on their way to a national and international breakthrough. The foundation relies on a wide range of offers that it has developed with experienced partner organizations. These include festivals, music ensembles, galleries and art academies in Switzerland and abroad.

In order to establish young talents at an international level as quickly as possible, individually tailored measures are needed that are geared towards their artistic development potential and the requirements of the market. Know-how exchange and networking such as coaching or artist-in-residence programs are in demand. With the "Klassenarbeit" project, for example, the ensemble recherche in Freiburg im Breisgau, which specializes in contemporary music, enables young Swiss composers to develop and perform new works. Other partners include the ORPHEUS Swiss Chamber Music Competition and ensemble proton bern.

A detailed overview of all young talent projects is available:
www.prohelvetia.ch/Nachwuchs
 

Dominik Blum (Hammond organ), Marino Pliakas (electric bass) and Lucas Niggli (drums) founded Steamboat Switzerland in 1996 because they were looking for a vehicle for their versatility. Dominik Blum had a degree in piano and Marino Pliakas in classical guitar, but they felt a certain vacuum. At the time, grunge made them realize what they were missing in new music: the physicality of rock'n'roll. In addition, all three musicians had developed a fascination for improvised music.

Another key feature of Steamboat Switzerland emerged during the first sessions: the band specializes in interpreting external compositions and interspersing them with exciting improvised passages. According to Lucas Niggli, there is a simple reason why the three highly musical members do not write the composed parts themselves: "We can't reach the level of composers who write pieces especially for us."

This is also reflected on the new album Time cry clearly. The pieces were written by Michael Wertmüller, who has already been commissioned by the band four times. As the drummer of Peter Brötzmann's band Full Blast, in which Marino Pliakas also plays, he knows the playing skills of the three musicians very well and can therefore create tailor-made compositions. These are strictly classical and meticulously notated, as a glance at the sheet music shows. And in their complexity - especially rhythmically - they push the limits of what can be played, as Marino Pliakas confirms. But the trio masters the challenges with breathtaking precision and burning intensity.

Steamboat Switzerland
(Dominik Blum, Marino Pliakas, Lucas Niggli):
Time cry.
Compositions by Michael Wertmüller.
Comfort records tr117

In his report Supply and structure review of June 26 to the Grand Council, the Bernese Government Council is proposing to reduce weekly instrumental lessons from the current 45 minutes to 30 minutes in the next school year and to 22.5 minutes in four years' time. Potential savings of 300,000 francs are expected for 2014 and of
900,000 francs over the next three years. The Government Council is of the opinion that this measure is justifiable, as it would restore the practice that existed before the conversion of the seminaries into grammar schools. (S. 108)

The music department of the Bernese grammar schools, on the other hand, is convinced that this cost-cutting measure would have serious consequences for music as a major subject at grammar schools in the canton of Bern. As instrumental lessons are taught at grammar schools and music schools, the music schools are also affected by this cut. For this reason, the subject association is fighting back with a online petition. On the website www.instrumentalunterricht.ch it lists arguments against this cut. The petition can be signed online.
 

The Menuhin Festival Gstaad aims to further increase its attractiveness by establishing a summer academy from 2014. As part of the Gstaad Academy, the activities in the areas of master classes and cultural mediation are to be combined and expanded.

The centerpiece is the Gstaad Conducting Academy planned for the years 2014 to 2016 under the direction of the renowned conductor Neeme Järvi. The project is important for the region from both a cultural and tourism perspective, writes the canton.

Dominik Blum (Hammond organ), Marino Pliakas (electric bass) and Lucas Niggli (drums) founded Steamboat Switzerland in 1996 because they were looking for a vehicle for their versatility. Dominik Blum had a degree in piano and Marino Pliakas in classical guitar, but they felt a certain vacuum. At the time, grunge made them realize what they were missing in new music: the physicality of rock'n'roll. In addition, all three musicians had developed a fascination for improvised music.

Another key feature of Steamboat Switzerland emerged during the first sessions: the band specializes in interpreting external compositions and interspersing them with exciting improvised passages. According to Lucas Niggli, there is a simple reason why the three highly musical members do not write the composed parts themselves: "We can't reach the level of composers who write pieces especially for us."

This is also reflected on the new album Time cry clearly. The pieces were written by Michael Wertmüller, who has already been commissioned by the band four times. As the drummer of Peter Brötzmann's band Full Blast, in which Marino Pliakas also plays, he knows the playing skills of the three musicians very well and can therefore create tailor-made compositions. These are strictly classical and meticulously notated, as a glance at the sheet music shows. And in their complexity - especially rhythmically - they push the limits of what can be played, as Marino Pliakas confirms. But the trio masters the challenges with breathtaking precision and burning intensity.

The study by Dianna Kenny from the Australian Centre for Applied Research in Music Performance diagnoses depression, social phobias and stage fright as common ailments of orchestral musicians in addition to pain.

With the help of a specific methodological procedure, the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI), the statements of 377 professional orchestra members were analyzed.

Female interviewees show significant linear relationships between so-called trigger point-related pain and stage fright, while for male interviewees the relationships between pain and stage fright are more complex: for those with the most noticeable stage fright, the associated trigger point-related pain is less intense.

Link to the study:
pom.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/02/0305735613493953.abstract

What is special about pop voices? How do jazz, blues and gospel vocalists differ from one another? These and similar questions are the focus of the research project "Voice and Singing in Popular Music in the USA (1900-1960)" led by Weimar musicology professor Martin Pfleiderer.

The project is based at the Institute of Musicology at the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar and the FSU Jena. Within its framework, the web tool is available, which uses a selection of more than 200 vocal recordings to visualize characteristics of voices and singing styles and relate them to each other.

Characteristics of the design such as rough or husky vocalization, vibrato, glissando, offbeats as well as dynamics, articulation and timing are presented graphically and linked to genres, artists and record labels.

More info: hfm-weimar.de/popvoices/vm/main.htm

Martha Monstein has been head of the theater department at the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in Zurich since 2001 and has many years of experience in promoting culture at national and international level as well as in-depth knowledge of Swiss art and cultural life. She is 56 years old, married and the mother of two children.

Martha Monstein completed teacher training in Chur and then studied English, German and literary criticism at the University of Zurich, where she graduated in 1986. She began her career in the field of culture as an editorial assistant in the cultural magazine of a local radio station, followed by engagements as programme manager of Zurich cultural centers and in production management and organization for theater and dance groups.

From 1993 to 2001, Martha Monstein was co-head of the Canton of Aargau's Department of Culture and launched various projects in the area of schools and culture. In doing so, she gained in-depth experience in the field of cantonal cultural promotion and cultural mediation. While working, she completed a postgraduate course in cultural management and was a member of the board of trustees of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

The "Competence Centre for Music Education and Laboratory for Music Education" at the HKB is mainly supported by Barbara Balba Weber, who has built up an infrastructure for music education for children and young people organized as an association with "Tönstör" in Bern.

The competence center is intended to be a contact point for organizers, ensembles and other interested parties who want to carry out or evaluate mediation projects.

As part of the Bern Music Festival, projects that Tönstor has carried out with various school classes in Bern were presented under the title "Totally Flipside". A documentary on the "Craft of teaching new music to children and young people" was also presented at the event and can be obtained from Barbara Balba Weber.

More info: www.toenstoer.ch

The Culture Commission believes that all four institutions meet the requirements for the continuation of operating subsidies. As a result of the Government Council's decision, the following cultural institutions will receive annual operating contributions over the next three years: argovia philharmonic CHF 400,000, KiFF Aarau CHF 200,000, Künstlerhaus Boswil CHF 350,000 and Murikultur CHF 150,000. The operating contributions are linked to performance agreements with a term of three years.

The institutions supported with operating contributions can continue to apply for project support from the Swisslos Fund. Other institutions with cantonal operating contributions are the Swiss Children's Museum in Baden, the Langmatt Museum in Baden, the Stapferhaus in Lenzburg, the Fantoche International Festival for Animated Film in Baden and Tanz und Kunst Königsfelden in Windisch.