Every year, the prize for young formats honors high-quality concepts by professionals for young audiences. It aims to "set an example for open ears in a musical society".

Projects in the categories Best Practice Concert, Best Practice Participatory Project, Music & Media and LabOhr from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg can apply. The application documents are now available online until September 20 (closing date).

This year's award ceremony will be held in cooperation with the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig. The supporting program around the ceremony on 22 November 2013 in Leipzig offers music professionals a forum with concerts, specialist meetings and a conference to exchange ideas and develop new ones.

More info: jungeohren.com/jop.htm
 

The special design for this year's Swiss Children's and Youth Choir Festival (SKJF) published by the Songbook is in Amriswil Publisher Swiss Songbook has been published. It contains a diverse selection of 34 songs, including choral pieces in various instrumentations as well as numerous canons with different levels of difficulty. New, previously unpublished works are also included, including commissioned compositions by Swiss composers such as Franziska Gohl, Maria Laschinger, Rudolf Lutz, Claudio Pontiggia, Carl Rütti, Beat Vögele and Geri Zumbrunn. The music commission under the direction of Bernhard Bichler has put together the Songbooks In addition to diversity and a wealth of stylistic variations, attention was also paid to the representation of all four national languages.

A highlight from this year's songbook is the piece être un oiseauwhich will be premiered by the Swiss Youth Choir. The composition for up to six voices places high demands on the 16 to 25-year-old choir singers.

Diverse Swiss choral landscape
The more than 50 participating choirs include representatives from all regions, such as the StimmWerkBande from Graubünden, which gave a joint performance with a friendly American choir in Tennessee to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The Central Swiss youth choir Nha Fala, which launched a musical to mark its 70th anniversary, is also taking part. As will the Ticino choir Cantori della Turrita Bellinzona, which has been internationally renowned since the 1970s and has performed in over 15 countries. With sixtiinsforju, a choir from Valais is also represented with around 20 female singers aged between 13 and 19.

According to an announcement by the HKB, Aimi Sugo has been awarded the "Musica '900" special prize for the best interpretation of 20th century repertoire in addition to the main prize.

The Salieri Competition is organized by the Associazione Scuola d'Istrumenti ad Arco "Antonio Salieri" in the composer's home town. Previous winners are Yamashita Teira (violin 2011) and Akuzawa Masayuki (piano 2012).

Aimi Sugo's teacher Patricia Pagny is a student of Nikita Magaloff, Maria Joâo Pires and Paul Badura-Skoda, winner of the Alessandro Casagrande Competition in Terni and prizewinner of the Concours Clara Haskil in Vevey.
 

Isolde was the first, illegitimate daughter of Richard and Cosima Wagner. In 1900, Isolde married the Swiss conductor Franz Philipp Beidler, and one year later Franz Wilhelm, Wagner's first grandson, was born in Bayreuth. In 1914, Isolde lost a paternity suit in order to be recognized as Wagner's legitimate daughter.

Franz Wilhelm Beidler moved to Berlin in 1921, married the Jewish woman Ellen Gottschalk and experienced the Weimar Republic as an active socialist. He had to emigrate to Zurich in 1934. As secretary of the Swiss Writers' Association in Zurich, he shaped its history until 1970. Beidler's biography is closely linked to the history of Richard Wagner and the Bayreuth Festival.

The exhibition, which is being realized in cooperation with the City of Bayreuth, shows the causes, background and course of the "Beidler Affair", which took its course with Wagner's personal involvement.

The exhibition by the musicologists is on display Verena Naegele and Sibylle Ehrismann from April 17 to September 7 at the Zurich City Archives, and will also be on display in Bayreuth in 2014. A book on the exhibition will be published in June as part of the Zurich Festival.

The band will receive band coaching, a CD production and performances at the Stanser Musiktage and the Schaffhausen Jazz Festival 2014.

Almost 30 formations applied for the prize. In addition to BASH, the finalists were Seeking Momentum, Andreas Schelker (Lucerne School of Music), The Dodectet, Jérôme Jeanrenaud (HEMU - Vaud, Valais, Fribourg), Shake before opening - not after, Lukas von Büren (Lucerne School of Music) and AUL, Martina Berther (Lucerne School of Music).
 

According to the laudatory speech, Ruth Illi has organized numerous church concerts, which have always stood out due to their appealing program focus and carefully selected artists. With her church concerts, she has set a special accent in the variety of Glarus concerts over several decades.

Jakob Strebi organized and played countless concerts as organist at the Reformed Church in Schwanden and was the organist of the church concerts there as well as pianist at a wide variety of events.

He also worked as a reporter for almost all Glarus newspapers and as an active member of many musical associations. He had thus made a significant contribution to the musical life of the canton since his youth.

Photographer Gret Graber and artisan Andres Graber were also awarded recognition prizes with equal prize money.

Works could be submitted in three categories: ensemble, voice and solo instrument and radiophonic sound art. The jury met in Bayreuth on November 29 last year and selected nine prizewinners from Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland from the 75 submissions from all over the world. It also made performance recommendations for three further compositions. The prizes, worth a total of 13,800 euros, were awarded during the Jean Paul anniversary ceremony in Bayreuth on March 21, 2013.

Benedikt Hayoz won 2nd prize in the "Ensemble, 10 to 14 solo instruments" category with his work From inside and outside and beyond, No. 71. It is used as part of the Klangspuren/Schwaz festivals by the Basel Ensemble Phœnix premiered on September 13, 2013, at the Kurhaus Hall/Tyrol.

According to the Swiss Choral Association (SCV), Gody Widmer had been a member of the SCV Executive Board since 1999 and was elected President in 2005. Highlights during his term of office included the organization of the 2008 Swiss Song Festival in Weinfelden and the launch of the next Swiss-wide festival in Meiringen in 2015. The Swiss Singing Competition was successfully held in Solothurn and Glarus and will take place again this November in Aarau. Gody Widmer was a strong advocate for the promotion of young talent and cooperation with other associations at national and European level. He was also a member of the Youth and Music Initiative Committee. Gody Widmer cites his increasing workload as the reason for his resignation.

The current Vice President Claude-André Mani currently also heads the Société Cantonale des Chanteurs Vaudois. He will relinquish his position as cantonal president next year. The SCV delegates elected Laurent Bovier from Valais as a new member of the Executive Board. He replaces Claude Maumary from Geneva, who is stepping down.

The Swiss Choral Association SCV is the largest association of amateur choirs in Switzerland with around 50,000 singers in over 1,800 singing formations of all kinds. It was formed in 1977 through the merger of the Swiss Federal Singers' Association (founded in 1842; male choirs), the Association of Swiss Women's and Daughters' Choirs and the Swiss Association of Mixed Choirs. The association promotes and develops singing in Switzerland. It supports the activities of the choirs in cooperation with the cantonal associations.

www.usc-scv.ch
 

At the meeting, the entire Board was re-elected for the period 2013 to 2017, as was President Markus Flury. The Swiss Music Education Association nominated Christine Egerszegi, member of the Council of States, as a new member of the Board. She was unanimously elected by the meeting with two abstentions.

The Board of the Swiss Music Council therefore consists of the following members:
Markus Flury, President, Co-Head of the Music Industry Division
Irène Philipp Ziebold, Vice President, Co-Head of Music Industry
Christine Egerszegi, Member of the Council of States, Political Affairs Division
Valentin Bischof, Co-Head Laity
Karin Niederberger-Schwitter, Co-Head of the Laity Division
David Schneebeli, Head of Professionals
Marc-Antoine Camp, Co-Head of Education
Armon Caviezel, Co-Head of Education

The Assembly of Delegates of the Swiss Music Council also approved the 2014 budget, which is based on an increase in membership fees in order to further strengthen the financial basis for the various tasks.

As an umbrella organization, the Swiss Music Council unites around 50 organizations active in the music sector. It represents the diverse musical life in Switzerland with around 2000 brass music associations, 1850 choirs, 200 professional and amateur orchestras, thousands of individual musicians, 8 music theaters, 440 music schools and numerous training centers for professions in the field of music.
 

The canton, city, five cultural institutions and the independent theater and dance scene are joining forces for the "Theater Werk Luzern" vision for the future. According to the canton, the project means a coordinated and diverse theater offering for Lucerne.

Major in-house, co- and guest productions are to be realized in a new theater hall at the KKL Luzern; a production center for the independent scene is to be located in the Südpol. The partners involved have signed a letter of intent to this effect.

The theater hall is to become a modern stage space in close proximity to the KKL Lucerne, which will program scenic work in various genres by an artistic director. The concept also includes music theater offerings as part of the Lucerne Festival.

For the Südpol production center, a team of curators selects independent groups that can produce independently with multi-year production contracts. The offerings in the Theatersaal and Südpol are coordinated to create a coordinated overall offering.

Those responsible expect to start work on the realization and
The new theater is scheduled to go into operation around 2022. It is to be expected, writes the canton, that any funds made available by the Salle Modulable Foundation could accelerate the realization of the project.

In October 2010, a donation for the construction of a multifunctional theater space, a Salle modulable, was unexpectedly withdrawn. The Salle Modulable Foundation has taken legal action against this. A court case is currently pending in Bermuda.

Howald's successor in the three-person festival team is 37-year-old cultural manager Delphine Lyner from Zurich. She studied sociocultural animation at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts before completing a part-time Executive Master of Arts Administration course at the University of Zurich.

From 2003 to 2007, she was President of the Swiss Youth Film Festival; since 2008, she has been Commercial Director of the Winterthur International Short Film Festival. Delphine Lyner, who will manage the Zürcher Theater Spektakel together with Werner Hegglin and Sandro Lunin, will take up her post this summer.

The first International Jazz Day was celebrated on April 30, 2012. Five bands and three venues took part in the first Jazz Day Festival in Zurich. The second edition - under the patronage of the Swiss UNESCO Commission - is now much more broadly based. Practically all the well-known jazz venues in Switzerland are taking part, as well as the jazz departments of music academies and other organizations.

The festival is intended to develop into a platform for exchange between a diverse and rich cultural scene. It is planned that, in addition to concerts, jam sessions and exhibitions, workshops, readings and discussions will also take place on this day in the future.

More info: www.jazzdayfestival.ch

Several cameras and changing shots will be used during the major orchestral rounds as well as the ceremonial, opening and prizewinners' concerts of the competition, which will take place from April 17 to 28, 2013, so that an event similar to a TV broadcast can be expected.

During the first two rounds of the competition, the live broadcast will also be shown on a large screen in the foyer of the Leopold Mozart Center.

For Ulrich Fahrner, head of the media laboratory at the University of Augsburg, the project offers the opportunity for transdisciplinary cooperation. The students can gain practical experience on the cameras and prove themselves in front of a large audience.

More info: www.leopold-mozart-competition.de

The Best Edition Awards were also presented at the Frankfurt International Music Fair in April 2013. Every year, the Deutscher Musikverleger-Verband e. V. (DMV) awards prizes to music and music books of outstanding quality. The aim is to highlight the achievements of those involved in production and, above all, to raise the public's awareness of quality. Dagmar Sikorski from the DVM: "The association and its 500 member publishers thus honor special editorial achievements in times of the levelling of cultural achievements and the prevalence of cheap reproductions."
More than 300,000 editions of sheet music from German publishers are available in German music shops, with around 7,000 new publications being added every year.

The excellent music and music books:

Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, autograph score
National Archive of the Richard Wagner Foundation Bayreuth, edited by Ulrich Konrad, Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel et al.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke: Bach Repertorium, Catalogs raisonnés of the Bach family of musicians, Volume II
edited by Peter Wollny, Carus-Verlag, Lf.-Echterdingen

Jazz Club, Learn to play jazz
edited by Andy Mayerl and Christian Wegschneider, Edition Dux, Manching. Booklet series for a total of 11 individual instruments. Pieces and exercises can be played together in a variable band line-up from the respective editions. There is also a bandleader's edition with the score and exercises as well as 2 CDs with full and play-along versions.   

In almost 60 working groups, themed forums and plenary events, a wide-ranging continuing education program is offered on new methods and content of singing and making music, concepts for early musical education in parent-child groups through to programs for senior citizens, successful programs for children and young people with different cultural backgrounds, the inclusion of people with disabilities and the promotion of particularly gifted children.

The congress is organized in cooperation with the Association of Bavarian Singing and Music Schools. The congress is sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and Culture, the district of Bamberg and the city of Bamberg.

In addition, the trade exhibition accompanying the congress will provide information on current offers in the areas of sheet music, teaching materials, literature, musical instruments, music and music school software.

More info: www.musikschulen.de