Swiss musicians, bands or independent labels can apply. The application should cover the complete production of an album. This includes the development of a new repertoire, studio recording, mastering, physical and/or digital release and international distribution.

The release must be made by an independent label that can guarantee broad international distribution. First-time productions will not be considered. The decision is made by a jury.

If the decision is positive, part of the grant will go to the musician and part to the label for the international promotion of the album. Applications can be submitted twice a year, on March 1 and September 1. The submission deadline must be at least four months before the release.

Further information can be found on the Pro Helvetia website in the new Guide to music.
 

Emanuele d'Astorga lived from 1680 to 1757(?). Born in Sicily, he moved to Rome, where Scarlatti and Gasparini were working at the time. From here he traveled all over Europe and wrote mainly operas and secular compositions. As a nobleman, he did not accept commissions from secular or ecclesiastical rulers.

The Stabat mater is his only sacred work. It comprises nine movements, four of which are dedicated to the choir: the opening chorus, Eja mater, Virgo virginum and the final chorus with a demanding Amen movement. The solo soprano and solo bass are each given an aria. There are also two duets with SA and AT and a trio with ATB.

Emanuele d'Astorga, Stabat Mater, pour soli (SATB), chœur mixte, orchestre à cordes et basse continue, partition chant-piano, CD 1195, Fr. 18.00, Cantate Domino, Fleurier 2011

Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) achieved great popularity during his lifetime with his numerous operas and oratorios. However, he also composed a large number of smaller vocal works. His Stabat mater is probably the best known and most effective of these.

The new edition is based on an edition by Eusebius Mandyczewski. The clefs and notation have been adapted to modern standards. The instrumental part with two trombones and strings is particularly attractive and effectively supports the character of the work. The basso continuo can also be played by the organ. The vocal scoring consists of four soloists (SATB) and mixed choir. The choral movements are very sustained, with the exception of the opening and closing choruses. The piano reduction and score each comprise 25 pages.
In terms of the size of the individual movements, both works are ideally suited for liturgical use.

Antonio Caldara, Stabat mater; score, BA 8955, € 11.95; piano reduction by Andreas Köhs, BA 8955-90, € 9.95; Bärenreiter, Kassel 2012

During her studio stay, Heidi Happy (Priska Zemp) wants to compose and create a new album. The jury "is curious to see how the influences and rhythm of the big city will affect her work and be reflected in her album". Christian Aregger, on the other hand, "will have the opportunity to immerse himself in the city of blues - back to mama - and search for his roots".

Applications from textile designer and outfitter Nina Steinemann, filmmaker and photographer Ralph Kühne, illustrator Benedikt Notter and curator Nadine Wietlisbach were also considered.

Four-month studio residencies have been awarded. A total of 43 artists applied for the residencies. The jury: Sandra Baumeler (Lucerne-Chicago City Partnership Association), Benji Gross (FUKA Fund City of Lucerne), Nathalie Unternährer (Head of Cultural Promotion Canton of Lucerne), Verena Omlin (Cultural Promotion City of Lucerne) and Stefan Sägesser (Cantonal Cultural Promotion Commission).

Sibylle Birrer succeeds Barbara den Brok, who left the Office of Culture at the beginning of 2013. As a former member of the cantonal German-language literature commission, she is very familiar with Bern's cultural scene, writes the canton. She lives with her family in Bern.

After studying German language and literature and history, the 42-year-old worked as a research assistant at the Swiss Literary Archives and at the same time trained as a cultural manager in Ludwigsburg (Germany). From 2002 to 2008, she managed the interdisciplinary cultural institution Forum Schlossplatz in Aarau.

The city and canton are each making a one-off investment contribution of CHF 2.5 million. The private foundation Konzerthaus Luzern represents the private part of the KKL Luzern public-private partnership and is to contribute around CHF 3 million in a new fundraising campaign.

The city of Lucerne also pays annual contributions of CHF 4.1 million, with an inflation adjustment to be made for the first time in 2019. What is new is that the Canton of Lucerne will also pay an annual contribution of CHF 500,000 to maintain the long-term value of the KKL Luzern.

The city and canton of Lucerne are also planning to publish their parliamentary bills on cultural promotion at the same time, as they are closely related and coordinated in terms of content. The corresponding parliamentary debates are expected to take place in January 2014.

As announced by the Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights (Gema), the expert jury awards the Music Authors' Prize The composer Klaus Huber, born in 1924, was and is driven in his works by a belief in the possibility of a different, better world. His deeply humanistic compositions incorporate European traditions as well as elements of non-European music, resulting in an independent gestural and communicative musical language that gains its resistant dimension from constructive elaboration and shattering expressiveness.

Works such as The soul must dismount from the mount, Tenebrae and Black earth not only used tones outside the Western interval system, but also stand for musical curiosity and transcendence in equal measure, Gema continues.

Klaus Huber has also influenced important contemporary composers as part of his teaching activities, including at the Freiburg University of Music: Younghi Pagh-Paan, Brian Ferneyhough, Toshio Hosokawa and Wolfgang Rihm were among his students.

At the end of November 2012, the application process for the sponsorship prizes and studio grants, which are awarded by the Cantonal Board of Trustees for Cultural Promotion on behalf of the Government Council, was announced for the second time.

A total of 55 applications were received, 48 applications for a sponsorship award, 23 for a residency in 2014 at the artist studio in Paris, which the Canton of Solothurn has been offering in collaboration with the Canton of Aargau since 2001.

The winners of the third sponsorship award were: Olten reggae musician Patrick Bütschi (born 1986), Langendorf pianist and singer Adina Friis (born 1988) and composer Jannik Giger (born 1985), who lived in the canton of Solothurn until 2010.

The residencies at Künstleratelier Paris have been awarded to visual artist Cecile Weibel (*1984) in the first half of 2014 and to theater artist Giulietta-Susanne Odermatt in the second.

Embedded in the anniversary celebrations, a panel discussion open to the public and a dense series of lectures by 58 scientists from all over the world will provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of research. The experts will present the latest scientific findings, which will also be published in the conference proceedings.

The aim is to critically assess the current state of Wagner research and the extremely lively and very heterogeneous reception of Wagner. The Leipzig conference thus presents the public with an up-to-date, academically relevant and wide-ranging picture of the man and artist Richard Wagner and his impact.

Like the conference on Robert Schumann in 2010, the multi-day Wagner Congress 2013 will also be organized by the Institute of Musicology at Leipzig University.

More info: www.Internationale-richard-wagner-tagung-leipzig-2013.de

In its reasons for awarding the prize to Bounce, the international jury cited terms such as "urgency", "risk-taking" and "energy". Second place (5,000 francs) went to the Bernese trio Kaos Protokoll. 

The Zürcher Kantonalbank Jazz Prize has been awarded for the eleventh time, this year for the first time as part of a four-day festival with six selected bands.

The prize is to be used in the form of services for the music: Studio production, video production, CD and label costs, instruments, promotion or booking. The winning band will also play on the opening night of the Zurich jazznojazz festival at Zurich's Moods jazz club.
 

The expert jury selected the following six Thurgau artists from 34 applications: Fabian Alder, director, Berlin; Gabriel Estarellas Pascual, musician, Amriswil; Cécile Hummel, visual artist, Basel; Andri Stadler, visual artist, Lucerne; Michaela Stuhlmann, performer, Müllheim and Bettina Wohlfender, author, Sirnach.

The handover of the grants will take place at a public event on Tuesday, June 11, 2013, at 7.30 pm at the Kulturforum Amriswil. The handover ceremony is also an opportunity for encounters between creative artists, politicians and cultural sponsors. The event will be accompanied by music from Raphael Jost and his band.

The contributions were awarded by a jury made up of the cultural department's specialist advisors and external experts. Its members were Katharina Ammann (curator of the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur), Ursula Badrutt (head of cultural promotion/art conservation at the Office of Culture Canton St. Gallen), Anja Bühnemann (music critic), Pat Kasper (musician, recording studio supporter), Astrid Künzler-Büchter (dancer, choreographer), Markus Landert, (Director of the Thurgau Art and Ittinger Museum), Martin Preisser (cultural journalist, musician), Andreas Schweizer (Director of the Weinfelden Youth Music School), Paul Steinmann (author, director), Christof Stillhard (Head of Cultural Promotion of the City of Frauenfeld), Peter Surber (journalist), Elisabeth Tschiemer (publisher), Judit Villiger (artist), Cornelia Zecchinel (PR consultant) and Monika Schmon (research assistant at the Cultural Office).

The biography of the composer, arranger, conductor, music theorist and pedagogue Peter Tchaikovsky, written by his brother Modest, occupies a prominent position in the extensive literature on the composer. Written in Russian, the work was published in 1903 by Tchaikovsky's main publisher Jurgenson in Moscow in two volumes and contains over 1300 pages. Largely based on correspondence with his close friend Nadezhka von Meck, it also contains letters to his professional colleagues Alexander Glazunov and Sergei Taneyev, portraits and other illustrations.

The two volumes were translated into German by Paul Juon (1873-1940), a Swiss-Russian student of Taneyev from Moscow. The publication, which became an important source work and was soon out of print, was one of the rarest biographies of musicians for almost a century. Surprisingly, the new edition only appeared in 2011 as the 13th volume of Tchaikovsky Studies. Alexander Erhard and Thomas Kohlhase are responsible for the carefully revised edition, sponsored by the International Juon Society (Liebefeld/BE) and the Tchaikovsky Society Tübingen. They accuse Juon's transmission of being "linguistically at times whimsical and not always satisfying, full of stylistic oddities". As her corrected new edition follows the transliteration commonly used in Slavic studies, Ms. von Meck appears in the phonetically consistent but equally whimsical and unsatisfactory spelling "fon Mekk".

In contrast to the German first edition, the new edition uses both the "old-style" Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar for dates. Furthermore, the scholarly appendix contains a differentiated subject index, an alphabetical index of works, an index of names, an index of abbreviations and other indexes. The genesis of the violin concerto composed in Clarens on Lake Geneva in 1878 and the opera begun there is documented in detail with quotes from letters The Maid of Orleans.

Modest Tchaikovsky, The Life of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, German by Paul Juon, new edition by Alexander Erhard and Thomas Kohlhase, XXX p., 2 vols., 1152 p., € 54.95, Schott, Mainz 2011, ISBN 978-3-7957-0778-1

With prize money totaling 94,000 euros, the prize is one of the most highly endowed in this genre. For the first time, in addition to the prizes for electronic and acousmatic music, prizes will also be awarded in the category "Sound Art - Sound as a Medium of Visual Art".

In addition to a lifetime achievement award worth 15,000 euros, up to four production prizes of 8,000 euros each will be awarded.

The prize is awarded to "works that break up the temporal limitations and linear structure of music and supplement the purely sonic elements with visual and spatial elements, for example in the form of a sound installation, a sound sculpture or similar".

Details of the invitation to tender: www.giga-hertz-preis.de

The festival will take place from September 11 to 13, 2015 in Aarau with up to 400 formations and around 1,200 musicians. In the same year, the 2015 Swiss Song Festival will take place in Meiringen from June 12 to 21.

The purpose of the Swiss Folk Music Association (VSV) is the promotion, preservation and cultivation of Swiss folk music as well as the association of active folk musicians and friends of folk music.

More info: www.vsvonline.ch

The Capriccio Baroque Orchestra from Rheinfelden performs Bach, Lully and Rameau in around 45 minutes, embedded in a story about a peasant girl who was enchanted by the sounds of a flute in the Baroque era, and actively involves pupils in the musical works.

The children attend performances in selected churches in the Aargau, learn interesting architectural details about the baroque space and immerse themselves in the colorful music of the baroque period.

According to the Capriccio Baroque Orchestra, it will perform for over 5,000 children and young people by the end of the year. Funding for a follow-up project has already been secured: Christine Egerszegi, member of the Council of States, received the prestigious Johanna Dürmüller-Bol Young Classic Award for her commitment to the Youth and Music Initiative and donated the prize money to Capriccio.

More info: www.kulturmachtschule.ch

As the Government Council of the Canton of Zurich stated in the minutes of its meeting on September 19, 2012, the Gold Medal of Honor "is traditionally awarded to a Zurich personality in recognition of their cultural life's work.

Fritz Näf, born in Weiach in 1943, obtained his primary school teacher's certificate and then studied singing at the music academies in Zurich, Basel and Freiburg im Breisgau, while also training as a teacher for early musical education and elementary school. At the end of the 1970s, he studied choral and orchestral conducting with Erich Schmid and Paul Schaller.

He taught solo singing (including at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis) and basic music courses and directed vocal ensembles and the choir at the conservatory in Winterthur. From 1986 to 2000, he was head of the music school and conservatory in Winterthur. When the University of Music and Theater Zurich (HMZ) was founded, he became its first rector. As early as 1961, he appeared as a singer in various productions in Switzerland, and from 1969 as a concert and opera singer throughout Europe.

In 1978, he founded the professional vocal ensemble at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis Basel Madrigalistswith which he premiered numerous works. In 1997, the Swiss Chamber Choir was founded in collaboration with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. From 2000, Fritz Näf was the full-time artistic director of these two ensembles until the dissolution of the Swiss Chamber Choir in summer 2011 and the handover of his position at the Basler Madrigalisten to Raphael Immoos on January 1, 2013."