The traveling exhibition grow - anchor - shinen accompanies the Aargau Symphony Orchestra throughout its entire anniversary season. Five triangular towers illuminate the history of the orchestra and thus also the musical life of the Canton of Aargau.

Sibylle Ehrismann and Verena Naegele, the curators of the traveling exhibition, have compiled many surprising anecdotes and interesting details about the history of the orchestra. For example, the star violinist Nigel Kennedy played with the Aargau Symphony Orchestra as a young talent.
In addition to an overview of the various periods and their respective chief conductors, the exhibition shows the development of the ensemble from a music teachers' orchestra to a nationally important orchestra and cultural "beacon" of the Canton of Aargau.

The exhibition has been on tour since September last year and can now be seen from April 4 to April 26 in the counter hall of the Aargauische Kantonalbank at its headquarters in Aarau.

www.aso-ag.ch
 

The musical is based on the world bestseller "Alice in Wonderland" and the biography of the author Lewis Carroll, whose story describes a journey into surreal worlds that is still fascinating today. Often misunderstood as children's characters, the figures in the novel - the White Rabbit, the Chess Queen and Humpty Dumpty - are disturbing inhabitants of an absurd dreamland through which the protagonist wanders in search of meaning in nonsense.

The composer himself calls this trip "An odyssey in dream and nonsense", for which he invented a Waits-typical mixture of melancholy jazz ballads and rough rhythms. The Swiss premiere is on March 28 at 7.30 pm at Theater Luzern.

Further performances: 5.4., 14.4., 18.4., 20.4., 22.4., 26.4., 19.5., 6.6. and 16.6.2013
 

At its annual press conference in Berlin, the BVMI announced that one fifth of the revenue generated by music sales is now attributable to music downloads or streaming.

Following the stabilization that began in 2011, the overall market suffered a slight setback: Overall, revenue from music sales fell by 3.2 percent to 1.44 billion euros. This was due to a further decline in the physical business (-7.7%) and a surprisingly weak fourth quarter.

Revenue from digital business (294 million euros) reached a record high last year with a share of 20.5%. Around 8.4 million people purchased downloads in 2012, with download sales climbing by 24.4% to around a quarter of a billion euros.

More than half of these sales (55%) are attributable to music albums, which remain the central currency in the music business even in the digital age. A total of 112 million albums were sold in 2012, of which one in six (17.5 million) was digital.

Rohrer has lived in Berlin for nine years and is one of the most sought-after European jazz drummers. He has played with Wolfert Brederode, Colin Vallon and Malcom Braff, as well as with clarinettist Claudio Puntin and singer Susanne Abbuehl.

He will be performing at the BMW Welt Jazz Award with a formation that he leads together with saxophonist Daniel Erdmann. The other members are cellist Vincent Courtois and guitarist Frank Möbus.

The drummer Ari Hoenig presents a New York quartet with Gilad Hekselman on guitar, Tivon Pennicott on saxophone and Orlando le Fleming on bass.

The first prize of the competition is endowed with 10,000 euros, while the second-placed ensemble receives a prize of 5,000 euros.

Mollet was Secretary of the Board of Directors and media spokesman for Schweizerische Volksbank and was largely responsible for the transformation of the financial institution from a cooperative to a public limited company.

He then spent three years as Head of Corporate Communications at Credit Suisse, where his responsibilities included managing communications for the bank's reorganization. Finally, he moved to Swiss Post as Head of Communications and member of the extended Group Executive Board.

Mollet was heavily involved in the introduction of the new postal legislation. He left Swiss Post after twelve years. In the meantime, he has taken on various consultancy mandates in the areas of communication and governance.

Daniel Mollet will take up his new position as Secretary General in the Department of Education, Culture and Sport of the Canton of Aargau on April 8, 2013.
 

On the one hand, in addition to the current eleven work years, four more will be awarded in the areas of serious music, literature, visual arts and jazz/rock/pop. On the other hand, the work year grants will increase from CHF 42,000 to CHF 48,000 each.

In addition to the existing studios in New York, Genoa, Paris, Kunming and Cairo, the city is creating further studios in Hamburg and Berlin, and is planning new studios in Istanbul and San Francisco.

Since September 2012 and until at least the end of 2017, around 1000 square meters of work and storage space has been available for interim use in the Migros operations center in Herdern. These are being allocated in collaboration with the Zurich University of the Arts.

In future, production and rehearsal rooms are to be rented exclusively to professional cultural practitioners whose place of residence and tax domicile has been the city of Zurich for at least two years.

A maximum stay of five years now applies to subsidized studios - including in the Rote Fabrik spaces, whose contracts expire in 2018 at the latest. At the end of 2012, twenty tenants of the Rote Fabrik had a useful life of more than 23 years.
 

The 49-year-old Andreas Moos currently works as deputy head of the Canton of Zurich's Department of Culture, where he manages the funding areas of visual arts, literature, music, dance and theater and is responsible for operating grants to regional cultural institutions.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Zürcher Theater am Neumarkt and a member of the Board of the Theater für den Kanton Zürich cooperative. He will take up the position at Pro Helvetia on October 1.

Pro Helvetia's Head of Promotion is responsible for managing the five departments of Literature and Society, Music, Dance, Theater and Visual Arts.

Compositions for films with a duration of at least 60 minutes, released between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013, are eligible for the prize for the best original composition for a feature film. The closing date for entries is May 31, 2013. More information: www.fondation-suisa.ch/filmmusikpreis

This year's Fondation Suisa Recognition Award goes to a Swiss composer in the field of contemporary music whose works are characterized by the combination of instrumental or vocal ensemble and electronics or orchestra and electronics.

Nominations can now be submitted via the following website: www.fondation-suisa.ch/preis-der-stiftung. The registration deadline is June 30, 2013.

Bieri takes over from Graziella Contratto, who will present her last festival program in Davos in August 2013. According to the festival's press release, he won out over more than fifty applicants.

Born in Zug, clarinettist Bieri studied at the Musikhochschule in Basel and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He has been a professor of chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg (Germany) since 2012. He performed as a young artist during Thomas Demenga's directorship and in 2010 on the occasion of the anniversary of the Davos Festival.

The Davos Festival - young artists in concert is a platform for young, highly talented musicians from all over the world. The 28th edition will take place from August 3 to 17, 2013 - under the theme "serendipity".

Swiss recorder player Mira Gloor is a member of the Matis ensemble, which came second in the Central German Baroque Music Prize. The winner in this category was Camerata Bachiensis with members from Italy, Germany and Poland.

The Bärenreiter Urtext Prize has been awarded to the ensemble Les Éléments, in which the Swiss recorder player Anne Simone Aeberhard plays. Jean-Christophe Dijoux, the ensemble's French harpsichordist, has been awarded a special prize for the best and stylistically appropriate continuo playing.

The International Telemann Competition was launched in Magdeburg in 2001 by the International Telemann Society to introduce young musicians to the compositions of the composer who gave the competition its name. It takes place every two years in Magdeburg and is open to different ensembles - in recent years, 251 participants from 34 countries have taken part.

Almost 1000 children and young people took part in the musical competition in the various regions. Over 100 judges evaluated the performances and admitted 276 young musicians to the final. This will take place from May 2 to 5 in Bern. The performances at the Musikschule Konservatorium Bern are open to the public. Further information will be available during April on www.sjmw.ch to find.

A total of 861 prizes were awarded at the seven entrada competitions, including 51 1st prizes with distinction and 225 1st prizes.
 

The Origen Festival Cultural 2013 with the open-air play "Noah" and numerous other events in the canton will receive a maximum deficit guarantee of CHF 200,000, while the Haldenstein Castle Opera 2013 with ten performances of Verdi's "Rigoletto" in August will receive a maximum of CHF 120,000.

The Opera St. Moritz 2013 with seven performances of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" in June/July will receive a maximum deficit guarantee of CHF 80,000, and the Festival da Jazz St. Moritz with around 30 concerts in July/August will be supported with a maximum deficit guarantee of CHF 120,000.

From 2013 to 2016, FOSI will receive an annual contribution of CHF 80,000 from cultural funding.

The Y Institute for Transdisciplinarity has firmly anchored the idea of interdisciplinary work at HKB. The new management team would like to use the consolidation phase to focus the interdisciplinary studies even more specifically on the needs of the students, to promote the exchange between research and teaching at the BUA and to further strengthen the interdisciplinary Master's degree program Contemporary Arts Practice (CAP). The Y Institute is also involved in expanding the strategic partnership with Tongji University in Shanghai.

HKB students and lecturers, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, jazz musician Django Bates, conductor Xavier Roth and Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller will be among those taking part in the anniversary events.

The new HKB newspaper will be published for the first time at the end of May as a supplement to the Berner Zeitung and the "Bund". It will subsequently be published every two months, covering topics related to the BUA and providing a clear agenda of BUA events.

On September 1, 2003, the School of Music and Theatre and the School of Art, Design and Conservation merged under the umbrella of the Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH to form the Bern University of the Arts BUA. The institution currently has around 850 students and 500 employees from 30 nations. With over 500 events per year, the HKB is also one of the largest cultural organizers in the Canton of Bern.

More info: hkb.bfh.ch

At present, musicians who want to keep valuable and fragile instruments close to them during a flight can never know exactly whether they will be rejected when boarding the aircraft and according to what criteria.

A European law due to come into force in 2014 will now ensure that instruments may only be rejected on the grounds of safety and previously disclosed technical criteria.

A memo from the EC dated March 13 outlines the content of the planned law and demands that national authorities monitor the enforcement of the provisions. The International Federation of Musicians welcomes the initiative.

In this 15-minute French-language work, Arvo Pärt explores the temptation of Abbot Agathon. He meets a leper who asks him to take him into town to do some shopping. However, the leper has no money. In the end, the abbot buys him a cake and brings it back. Suddenly the leper disappears from his sight and in the end reveals himself to be an angel of God.

Pärt conducts the dialog in short motifs consisting of three to four notes. The pauses in the conversation illustrate the fear of infection, which was widespread for a long time. Lepers were largely excluded from society and lived in great loneliness. The choir is assigned the task of narrator, and this in monophonic form. The soloists take on the pleas of the leper, symbolizing the voices from above. The string orchestra is made up of two violins, four violas, three cellos and a double bass. The uncertain mood between the dialogues is bridged in an exciting way by the string orchestra.

Arvo Pärt, L'Abbé Agathon, for soprano, alto, choir SA and string orchestra, study score (French/English), UE 34672, € 26.95, Universal Edition, Vienna 2011