The Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO) has also been catering to younger listeners with various formats for many years. Various children's concert formats have a place in the concert schedule.

The children's concert "Music with Globi - a journey through the world of sound" will premiere next season in close collaboration with the Globi publishing house and based on the newly produced Globi book of the same name. Timo Schlüssel, who is responsible for the story and the scenic realization, and the composers Rodophe Schacher and Aurelio Meyer will be involved.

© Orell Füssli Publishers

The Lily Waeckerlin Fund of the Accentus Foundation awards an annual music prize. The prize is awarded to an innovative and high-quality project in the field of youth and music. With this award, the foundation aims to motivate children and young people not just to consume music, but to actively engage with it. According to the ZKO and the Accentus Foundation, the awarding of the prize therefore plays a special role in communicating and introducing young people to musical works.

A decisive criterion for awarding the prize is, whenever possible, the presence of an element that outlasts the current phase of the project. According to Michael Hess, project manager at the Accentus Foundation, this is the case with the new Globi book, similar to the Lucerne Theater project last year or the Gare des enfants project in 2009.

The following projects have been awarded the Lily Wackerlin Prize to date:
2012: "Fräulein Bixel und Herr Glück", children's opera at the Lucerne Theater
2011: Upper Valais singing school cantiamo, Brig, project 'Singing is cool'
2010: Tönstör Association, Bern, "Still Life" project
2009: Gare des enfants, Basel, "Wegweiser Musik" project
2008: Köniz Music School, "Travesías" project
2007: Ecole de Musique du Conservatoire de Lausanne, project "Structure 'musique-école'"
2006: Lucerne School of Music, "Air Condition" project
2005: Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, project "Music Perception: Promotion through Improvisation and Composition"

www.accentus.ch
www.zko.ch
 

Never before has so much music been consumed as today. However, music label sales have fallen by 67 % in the last ten years. The decline is inversely proportional to the increase in broadband Internet connections in Swiss households. In 2010, in its response to the Savary postulate on the protection of copyrights on the internet, the Federal Council came to the conclusion that no additional measures were necessary. This assessment led to those affected coming together to form the Swiss Music Creators Association. Last year, Federal Councillor Simonetta Sommaruga set up the AGUR 12 working group to examine the current copyright situation and identify possible solutions.

The first part of the PGM session was held by Lorenz Haas, lawyer and managing director of IFPI Switzerland, the industry association of Swiss music labels. He explained the business practices of unfair music download websites and possible countermeasures, such as the warning notice model used very successfully in France. (Incidentally, a striking number of such globally operating piracy sites are based in Switzerland. And renowned Swiss companies are often present on such sites with advertising). Haas emphasized that it was not about new legal provisions, but about better enforcement of existing ones. The central point of Swiss law, i.e. downloading without penalty, remains untouched, but uploading, which is a criminal offense, is to be effectively combated. Haas considers the work in AGUR 12 to be rather disappointing at this stage, as too many groups are involved and the discussions are correspondingly unspecific.

In the second part of the meeting, Stefano Kunz, Managing Director of the Swiss Music Council, interviewed singer-songwriter Ivo Sidler. He has been a freelance musician for 12 years, founded his own label in 2007 and is a board member of the Swiss Musicians Association.

Stefano Kunz: What prompted you to get involved?
Ivo Sidler: One example: 20 minutes has been advertising links for years where you can download music for free. I always wondered why the music scene didn't stand together and fight back. The bottom of the barrel was the Federal Council's report, which saw no need for action. In the Swiss Musicians' Association, we felt it was an affront and a lack of appreciation that our state was making it possible for people to obtain our work for free.

Why is it the free download that hurts you so much economically?
Why would it hurt Swatch or Novartis so much economically if consumers paid nothing for their products? As long as people can get something for free, they certainly won't pay for it. None of us can compete with a free offer.
I took part in the European Song Contest last year with my latest song, not necessarily because of the ESC, but mainly because it's one of the last opportunities in this country to get your music on TV. Composing, producing, recording, mixing plus the TV show ultimately cost a total of 27,000 francs. The day after the broadcast, the song was legally available to buy on iTunes. But on the same day, it was already available illegally on various free sites. According to my accounts, I have sold this song around 500 times to date. I can't refinance 27,000 francs from 500 x 1.60 francs.
Now, of course, you could say that I made a bad calculation. But nobody can tell me how many people have the song today without having paid for it. If we had won, we would have been invited to Azerbaijan. We came second. That's a risk I'm prepared to take. But it's a completely different risk if I have to live with the fact that people in this country have the choice of whether they want to pay the price I've set for an album or a single song, or whether they can get it somewhere for free.

So the Internet is clearly distorting competition?
Not the Internet as such. But the legal regulations. The very fact that people are led to believe that they can have our work for free contradicts everything that is otherwise commonplace in our lives and on which our society has reached a basic consensus - namely that anyone who provides a service must also be compensated for this service.
I am not fundamentally against free offers. These are entrepreneurial decisions. If someone invests 50,000 francs in a CD, finds a label that spends that much again on marketing and promotion, and then ultimately wants to offer the product for free, then they should be able to do that for all I care. But I don't want that. And neither do many others with me. The Copyright Act states that we as authors alone can decide to whom and at what price we offer our product. It is therefore not acceptable for consumers to be able to say: We don't care, we're getting it for free anyway.
I go into school classes from time to time and ask specifically: Where do you buy your music? The young people just laugh at me. They are encouraged in this attitude by the legal regulation that downloading - from wherever - is legal. Not everyone here thinks that's right. This attitude may not be opportune, we realize that, but that's where the problem actually starts. If we are no longer prepared to change this situation, then we must at least finally tackle all those who make our work available without permission.

Is there an ideal solution from your point of view?
We don't want to become a subsidized "fringe group" at the expense of the state, which is why most of us don't want a flat rate that would ultimately force every citizen to pay for something they may not even want.
So the solution has to be that we get our market back, that we can set the price for our work ourselves again and run our business as every trader in this country is entitled to do. If the price is too high and nobody buys our songs as a result, we've probably written bad songs. That is our business risk, which every entrepreneur has to live with. But it doesn't legitimize anyone to get our work for free without being asked and approved by the state.
In addition, streaming is not the future model for every author, because not every author is also an artist. As an author, you would have to pay per
month to generate 10,370,000 downloads to reach the minimum basic income of CHF 2,800. In Switzerland, this is simply an illusion.

The Biel Symphony Orchestra's 8th symphony concert focuses entirely on French music - more specifically on the timbres of French brass. The highlight is Camille Saint-Saënsʼ concert piece for horn and orchestra; soloist Ulrich Hübner plays a "Cor chaussier" specially built for this concert, which was developed as part of the research project at Bern University of the Arts.

In addition to historical and interpretative studies, the archaeometallurgical expertise of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and the Paul Scherrer Institute was also incorporated into the HKB project.

This was based on recent criticism of the previously valid but now outdated doctrine that the geometric shape of the sounding air column is primarily responsible for the sound and playing characteristics of a wind instrument, regardless of material and wall thickness.

More info: www.ogb-sob.ch/de/agenda/2013/04/24
 

The series of events Monday Night-Music in Flawil, which began under the direction of Urs C. Eigenmann in 2007, the idea of the national festival jazz was created. It is an event for local bands (Switzerland and neighboring regions) for the styles of swing, funk, soul and acid jazz, for which there are hardly any platforms in Switzerland.

The first national festival took place on the occasion of Flawil's 1150th anniversary in 2008 in the then new community hall. The idea of repeating the festival annually fell through for financial reasons. It was not until 2011, once again in Flawil, that the second and last year in St. Gallen the third jazz was held. The event in Flawil was poorly attended, which prompted the organizers to move the 2012 festival to St. Gallen. The packed hall in the Lokremise last November proved this decision right.

Until now, the festival was a child of the Night-Music in Flawil association, which acted as the supporting association. At the last general meeting, it was decided to separate the association and the festival. jazz thus became independent and founded the new association on April 2 jazz.

The next festival will take place on Saturday, September 21.

www.jazzin.ch
 

The Bernese composer Don Li has been working on the combination of groove and minimal music since 1993. He calls this musical and compositional concept of reduction and repetition "Tonus-Music". He gave this concept a space by founding the Tonus-Music Laboratory in Bern, which opened in 2012 in Orbital Garden was renamed. It has been located at Kramgasse 10 in Bern for 10 years.

Now Don Li and his team want to open this cellar, where art, installation and performance events are realized, to a wide audience. The money for this is to be raised in a "Cloud" come together. We are looking for 500 people to pay at least 10 francs per month by standing order. This covers the artists' fees and other costs, while the organization is carried out on a voluntary basis, as it has been for years. In this way, all interested parties have free admission to the Kunstkeller and are able to engage with the latest works of art.

The House of Folk Music has announced that Johannes Schmid-Kunz is leaving the house at his own request after 5 years of management in order to take on new challenges. His successor will be Markus Brülisauer, who has been working for the house in various functions since May 1, 2012. The historian and trained music educator is an active folk musician and president of the folk music association "ufgspillt & tanzet" in March and the surrounding area. In addition to his 50% position in Altdorf, Markus Brülisauer works as a research assistant at the Museum Altes Zeughaus, Solothurn.

The House of Folk Music is responsible for research, documentation, work with young people and the subject of folk music in schools; it is also a versatile course center and has artistic responsibility for the folk music festival in Altdorf. It works closely with the most important national folk culture associations and administers the Interest Group for Folk Culture in Switzerland (IGVS).
www.hausdervolksmusik.ch
 

According to a press release from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the premiere of Odyssey Central Switzerland takes place. For this theatrical expedition through five cantons, the Lucerne Theater commissioned a composition from the Lucerne School of Music. Five works for small instrumental ensemble and vocal soloists were created, entitled Views of a journey will be performed by students and members of the theater ensemble. The play can be seen in Lucerne until June 15, as well as once each in Schwyz (May 17), Altdorf (May 25) and Buochs (June 7). Dates and venues: www.luzernertheater.ch/ansichten

Within the scope of fabulous a total of 27 projects such as concerts, performances, exhibitions and theater productions are being realized by various institutions. They are supported by the Albert Koechlin Foundation with a total of CHF 1.1 million.
www.sagenhaft13.ch
 

For the theater production Vaudeville! Open Air under the artistic direction of Tomas Schweigen, Theater Basel is looking for extras of all ages. No previous acting experience is required.

This play will not be performed in the theater, but on a separate stage on Theaterplatz. The premiere will take place on May 3, 2013.

Interested parties are invited to an information event on Wednesday, April 10 at 7 p.m. in the foyer of the Schauspielhaus, Steinentorstrasse 7.
Please register at: e.boehmer@theater-basel-ch
 

According to a press release from Musik Amrein, the carbon trombone bell is a world first. The Lübeck-based company spent a year developing it using state-of-the-art technology and the expertise of specialized materials scientists. The lightweight high-tech material carbon weighs 20% less than brass and allows optimal handling of the instrument and comfortable music-making.

The carbon bells (also known as bells) are manufactured in the same way as sheet metal bells on a mandrel whose convex and concave surface is designed and measured for the purest intonation. The material has a very high rigidity and at the same time a lower density than metal, it is corrosion-resistant and wear-free. Such a bell can even withstand a fall without deformation or dents. Carbon does not heat up in strong sunlight and is resistant to ageing.

The sound of the bell on the trombone is pleasantly soft, the notes are light and focused. Professional trombonists of various styles have tested the carbon bells and given positive feedback. This encouraged Amrein to present prototypes to the public for the first time at the Frankfurt Music Fair from April 10 to 13 in Hall 4.1, Stand D58).
The next important step would be to develop tuba sound pieces to reduce the weight of these instruments.

www.musik-amrein.com
 

The competition committee of the canton and city of Lucerne decided on the following four categories for the 2013 call for entries: product design, illustration, pop/rock/
Electro/HipHop, Jazz/Improvised Music.

In the field of music, the commission is now defining two separate categories. For the first time, jazz/improvised music will be advertised as a separate category and thus receive more targeted support.

The juries are made up as follows:

Pop/Rock/Electro/Hiphop
Mathias Menzl, music editor at the TV station Joiz, Zurich
Elia Rediger, artist, musician and band member of "the bianca story", Basel and Berlin
Marlies Seifert, Music Editor 20 Minuten, Zurich

Jazz/Improvised music
Lucas Niggli, musician and composer, Uster
Lisette Spinnler, musician and lecturer, Basel
Marc Stucki, musician and composer, Bern

The dossiers can be submitted until July 15, 2013.
Further information: www.werkbeitraege.ch
 

An operating contribution of CHF 220,000 and a deficit contribution of CHF 25,000 for the Kunsthaus as well as a contribution of CHF 5,000 and a deficit contribution of CHF 35,000 for the Braunwald Music Week were approved for 2013.

The holästei cultural center will receive an operating contribution of CHF 30,000 and a deficit contribution of CHF 10,000, while the Glarner Singverein will receive a deficit contribution of CHF 26,900 for its main concert. Bergklang GmbH, Sound of Glarus will be supported with a direct contribution of CHF 15,000 and a deficit contribution of CHF 25,000.

Finally, the Alpwirtschaftliche Verein will receive a contribution of CHF 20,000 for the book project "Glarner Alpwirtschaft" and the Verein Sernftalbahn Engi will receive a contribution of CHF 40,000 for the Eng track roofing.

The Landesplattenberg Engi Foundation will be granted a contribution of 25% of the eligible costs of CHF 1.5 million, up to a maximum of CHF 375,000, towards the costs of redeveloping the Plattenberg Engi. In addition, the Foundation will be granted a contribution of 72,000 francs towards the costs of renewing the audiovisual multimedia show. CHF 322,000 will be taken from the lottery fund and CHF 125,000 from the tourism fund for the development.

Three applications were rejected and two were deferred.

Two heavy landscape-format paperback volumes (700 pages each) give us both a comprehensive overview and a detailed insight into the writings and notes on how violins and related instruments were built, tuned, intoned and held in the three centuries between 1550 and 1850, how the bows were shaped and guided, which ornaments, effects, arpeggios, scordaturas, interpretations and cadenzas were common and which pedagogical aids were available. - A valuable compilation that I can warmly recommend.

It is a pleasure to read the introductory sections of the chapters. The many source citations following the chapters, organized by year of composition, are enriched with many never-before-seen illustrations and music facsimiles and are available in German and in the original language. I hear much that I have never read in my long life, often very entertaining and amusing but certainly suitable for serious study. Here are a few examples of my fascination:

• I 31 (volume 1 page 31): Concise interpretation of the term tempo rubato.
• I 90: Purchase price of a Stainer violin in the form of a high life annuity to the seller, an old violinist!
• I 191: Spohr demands tempered intonation.
• I 332: In his instruction letter to Maddalena Sirmen-Lombardini from 1760, Tartini describes how a careful bowing approach leads to a beautiful sound.
• II 12: I would never have realized that in the 3rd movement of Bach's A minor solo sonata the accompaniment could be called "Bogenvibrato".
• II 14: Thanks to careful research into word meanings with the help of the Grimm dictionary, the author can interpret Koch's description that vibrato is a "timeworn manner of playing" as a manner of playing that has become a habit through years of use.
• II 55-63: Helpful detailed list of all ornamentation names and their meanings.
• II 146 on Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville's sonatas Les sons harmoniques (Paris 1738): Recommendation for the performance of these first sonatas in which harmonics were integrated into the composition.
• II 332 and 486: Exciting anecdotes from the life of Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf.
• II 332: Lolli recommends not leaving fingers lying around because they have a cushioning effect.
• Chapter XII: Interpretation with very rich sources on 135 pages.

A 62-page list of sources proves the diligent literacy of the Bern-born author Marianne Rônez, who lives in Vienna and Innsbruck and also teaches baroque violin in Europe and the USA. The rich appendices contain valuable music facsimiles, e.g. Tartini's complete Regole "schelettri" (schemes for the formation of cadences), Baillot's organ points from L'Art du Violon (a technically stimulating walk through the circle of fifths), Spohr's 7th Symphony. Concert by Rode as a duet with many playing instructions or from Michel Corrette's L'Ecole d'Orphée one duet each in French and Italian style (the latter can be heard on the CD).

Combination and difference tones

I have searched in vain for indications that certain notes on the string instrument can be checked for exact intonation with the help of the resonance of the empty strings and their overtones, as I have used this to good effect in my lessons (according to Christine Heman, Intonation on string instruments, Bärenreiter 1964). Only in the chapter Special Effects II 144 and 157 does Rônez report on Francesco Galeazzi, who amplified the played note with empty or fingered octaves thanks to the resulting resonance, and on J. P. Billiard, who intensified a bowed note by mutely fingering its octave or prime and then striking a third to make the bowed note vibrate.

I am even more surprised that, apart from II 158 where Baillot's organ imitation with the third tone is described, there is nothing about the combination or difference tones. These are easily audible when playing double stops, have the frequency of the difference between the vibration numbers of the notes played and are very helpful for tuning the strings and for intonation - a constant tool in my studies and when working with my pupils. Giuseppe Tartini, who taught many students from all over Europe, was one of the first to describe this phenomenon. The doctoral student Angela Lohri gave me the Trattato 1754 by Tartini, from the first chapter of which I translate freely and greatly abridged: "If two notes ... are sustained for some time, there is a third note (terzo suono) ... When I play on my violin on two strings, I can physically encounter the form of the interval, which has the advantage of secure intonation for me and my students and of proving the precise diatonic scale." In 1767, when his Trattato had already become known throughout Europe and was praised (Rousseau, Martini, d'Alembert, Serre) and criticized (Rameau), Tartini defended himself in his De' Principij 1767: "In 1714, when the author [Tartini] was 22 years old, he discovered the phenomenon on his violin in Ancona, which not a few living witnesses are able to recall. He made it the fundamental rule of perfect intonation for the boys at his school in Padua, opened in 1728..."

Sounding examples

The accompanying CD illustrates the development of interpretation from 1585 to 1803 with many pieces beautifully recorded by Rônez with colleagues. Unfortunately, the index II 684 does not quite match the contents of the CD, which I correct here after consultation with the author as follows: Montéclairs Duo in French underhand technique with relaxed stroke rules is missing, that's why track 8 is 9 and so on. Because track 26, Lolli, Adagio. Avec beaucoup de Grace, is an unrecorded track, the tracks are correct again from here on.

The variety of Scarlatti's melodic, harmonic and technical ideas is ideally reflected in the selection. A sensitive, rhythmically profiled sonata such as the one in G minor L 488 / K 8 is followed by L 388 / K 2 in G major, a playful, almost toccata-like work. With subtle use of the pedal, artfully savored cantabile and attacking motoric alternate fluently, the differences could not be greater, the radius of the many tonal shadings and dynamic subtleties could not be wider. The extent to which Mazzola, as a native southerner, is able to empathize with Scarlatti's expressive cosmos is also illustrated by his own "Encore" in the style of the Neapolitan composer, born in 1685.

Domenico Scarlatti: Sonatas Vol II (20 sonatas and "Encore"). Patrizio Mazzola, piano. Müller & Schade M & S 5072/2. (Vol. I, 15 sonatas, M & S 5067/2)