For the past five years, the foundation has raised CHF 100,000 a year, which enables the city's cultural department, the Département de l'instruction publique, de la culture et du sport (DIP), to purchase tickets to cultural events for the city canton's schoolchildren or to enable them to take part in workshops.

Around 400,000 francs have now been invested in the project, writes the canton. The cultural offerings for young people have thus been increased by around a quarter. In 2012, the foundation increased the amount by an additional 56,000 francs due to the success of the project.

In 2013, the project "Stravinsky s'invite à Geisendorf" will be supported with 25,000 francs, among other things, as part of which pupils will be able to explore Stravinsky's soundscapes through dance under the guidance of the Atelier danse Manon Hotte.

According to a statement from Bayerischer Rundfunk, the prize was awarded to a musician who has made critical questioning her trademark. In keeping with this attitude, every piece of music must make sense of its material, its arrangement on both a small and large scale and legitimize it through its content and intended message. This is a very high standard, which Mundry naturally also demands for her own works.

Along with the prize, Isabel Mundry, who also teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), was commissioned to compose an orchestral work, which was premiered at the award ceremony. She has reworked the piano concerto "Ich und Du" from 2008. The result was presented by pianist Nicolas Hodges together with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Emilio Pomarico.

Lucas Niggli, probably the most active drummer in Switzerland at the moment, as well as Michel Godard and the Italian accordionist Luciano Biondini will be among those performing in Schaffhausen. Michael Moore, the Dutch super sax player and the New York electric guitarist McManus will be playing with Michel Wintsch from Geneva.

Berlin-based trombonist and Romand Samuel Blaser will be performing with two French musicians in a new trio. The Lausanne pianist Sylvie Courvoisier will be playing solo for the first time in Schaffhausen. She is traveling from New York for the event. Newcomers Yves Theiler, pianist from Zurich, and the Biel quartet "Breakfast on a Battlefield" will be welcomed.

Westdeutscher Rundfunk WDR 3 is recording a live evening together with SRF for the third time. The festival will thus be broadcast as far away as North Rhine-Westphalia. Swiss television SRF will also be showing three documentary films about Swiss jazz from its beginnings to the present day as previews. The screenings will be accompanied by interviews and panel discussions.

The whole program: www.jazzfestival.ch

Picture: Francesca Pfeffer

The Foundation makes an annual contribution of CHF 100,000 to a fund managed by the IHA. The fund is designed as a pilot project and is initially limited to three years. Over 300,000 active people are organized in ten national associations in the IG.

With the performance agreement, Pro Helvetia is transferring the support of nationwide projects of individual folk culture associations to IG Volkskultur in a three-year pilot project.

The IG Volkskultur has appointed an independent panel of experts to assess applications. The members of the jury are Isabelle Raboud-Schüle (Bulle), André Ducret (Pont-la-Ville), Josef Schuler (Altdorf) and Hansruedi Spichiger (Bern) as president. Pro Helvetia has a non-voting seat. The secretariat of the fund is run by the Haus der Volkskultur in Altdorf.

Individuals, groups or festivals continue to submit their applications for folk culture projects directly to the Foundation online via www.myprohelvetia.ch in.

More info: www.volkskultur.ch

Opus 111! Did the composer allow himself a little gag? After all, who doesn't think of Beethoven's last piano sonata, truly a "late work", when they hear this number! The Blüthner Variations op. 111 by Julien-François Zbinden must also be counted among them. After all, he wrote the piece at the incredible age of 95 ... and it is apparently to remain his last piano work.
However, his variations are not of Beethovenian transcendence, but are bursting with youthful mischief and freshness. A simple theme with a slightly jazzy touch, a "blues in three", forms the basis for eight variations, which differ considerably in character and pianistic demands, whereby even the more virtuosic parts - as always with Zbinden - are pleasant and rewarding to play.

In any case, this composer has the rare gift of making a piano sound wonderful, even with simple means.
This opus 111 is dedicated to "someone who has faithfully accompanied me for over 65 years ...

This someone is my Blüthner grand piano, which is over 100 years old". One wishes that the composer of this charming piano piece would also reach this age.

Julien-François Zbinden, Blüthner Variations op. 111, for piano, PNO67, Fr. 20.00, Edition Bim, Vuarmarens 2012

Highly unusual recording technology provides additional listening pleasure. It may well be that the direct recording in front of the galleries makes finely tuned, analytical listening more difficult; perhaps some listeners are also disturbed by the lack of balance between vocal and instrumental parts in Schütz or the reverberation of the monastery church in Muri. However, the sound engineers Ludger Böckenhoff and Bernhard Hanke, the conductor Johannes Strobl, the Cappella Murensis and Les Cornets Noirs have achieved something that is sorely lacking in countless dry, sterile studio productions: a grandiose, vital and full-bodied retrospective of times that made the musicalization of space a defining theme long before the avant-garde of the 20th century.

The recording was honored with the International Classical Music Award 2013 in the Baroque vocal category.

Polychoral Splendour. Cappella Murensis, Les Cornets Noirs, conductor: Johannes Strobl. SACD Audite 92.652

The bandXaargau festival offers professional performance opportunities for up-and-coming talent. The participating bands are given the opportunity to present their musical skills live to an audience.

At the qualifying concerts in Aarau, Baden, Brugg and now also in Aarburg, 23 bands with members aged between 12 and 23 will be competing this year. In addition to the bands, the spotlight will also be on talented young presenters who will guide the audience through the evening.

The preliminary rounds take place in Aarburg, Brugg, Baden and Aarau. Each evening, five to six bands present their own songs or cover songs for twenty minutes. The musical spectrum of the performances ranges from rock to metal to hip-hop.

The jury is made up of experienced musicians and media representatives. They give each band feedback after their performance. In the end, the best six bands make it through to the final on May 25, 2013 at KiFF Aarau.

More info: www.bandxaargau.ch
 

At the beginning of 2012, the canton of Lucerne opened a fund with Swisslos money to help cultural event organizers in the canton of Lucerne with the purchase of basic event technology. This year, the Albert Koechlin Foundation is now also making a contribution to the fund. Theater, cabaret and music organizers in the Lucerne countryside as well as in the city and agglomeration of Lucerne can apply for a contribution.

The Canton of Lucerne hopes that this will provide lasting relief for budgets by saving on rental costs, making the venues more attractive for artists and audiences and fundamentally strengthening the activities of cultural event organizers, particularly in the Lucerne countryside.

In 2012, a total of 14 contributions to cultural organizers were approved and 106,000 francs were distributed. Three quarters of this went to the Lucerne countryside, where the need for investment is particularly great.

The application deadline is April 26, 2013. Further dates, conditions of participation, criteria and requirements for the application can be found at
www.kultur.lu.ch
 

The "Cornichon", the prize of the Olten Cabaret Festival, has been awarded since 1988. Previous winners include Franz Hohler (1990), Gerhard Polt, Dieter Hildebrand and Simon Enzler.

Nicole Knuth and Olga Tucek both grew up in the cultural and artistic milieu: Nicole Knuth, granddaughter of Gustav Knuth, daughter of Klaus Knuth and Hannelore Fischer and grandniece of O.W. Fischer, commuted between Zurich's Gold Coast and Vienna. She initially trained as an actress. Olga Tucek, born and raised in Zurich, Leimbach, surrounded by Czech relatives and the lifestyle of the Danube Monarchy, took up her mother's legacy and became a singer.

In December 2010, cantonal councillors Christoph Pfister and Rolf Bolfing demanded that the cantonal government terminate the agreement, partly because the canton of Lucerne was no longer a reliable and predictable partner following the termination of the PHZ Concordat.

In response to a request from the Cantonal Council, the Government Council has drawn up a proposal to withdraw from the agreement as of the next possible termination date, December 31, 2015.

At the same time, however, it is requesting the rejection of the termination proposal. According to the official communication from the cantonal government, an exit would bring down the entire construct negotiated between the cantons and damage the canton's image.
 

The scholarship will be offered from 2014. It enables the selected individuals to live in a large first floor room (basement) with a room or an apartment in the same building in the East Village free of charge from February 1 to July 30, 2014. The scholarship is endowed with CHF 18,000 towards travel and accommodation costs.

Applications are open to artists of all disciplines from Bern or with a sufficient connection to the city of Bern. Applications (length: 2 to 6 pages A4) must be submitted to the Department of Cultural Affairs, Gerechtigkeitsgasse 79, 3011 Bern, by May 31, 2013 (note: "Atelier New York"). The submissions will be reviewed by a jury made up of representatives of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the city's cultural promotion commissions in June 2013.
 

According to a statement from the German Cultural Information Center, the heart of the internet portal is an extensive database. To date, it contains over 1100 relevant players, sponsors, projects and competitions from the field of cultural education. Users can follow current events in the field of cultural education via the news on the website, which is updated several times a day.

As a further service, the calendar of events gives users an insight into upcoming events, congresses, application deadlines and public meetings. The job exchange offers a selection of vacancies in the field of cultural education. In addition, the relevant literature and legal provisions on cultural education are presented.

The website is a module of the Cultural Education Dialogue Platform of the German Cultural Council. It is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

More info: www.kultur-bildet.de
 

The Sinfonietta must manage to raise the sum of 6666 francs within just under five weeks. In return, donors will receive free tickets, CDs of a live radio recording, lessons with the soloists (euphonium, marimba), conducting lessons, autographs from the composer Oliver Waespi and much more.

The ensemble wants to make an unusual concert project possible with marimba and euphonium as solo instruments and the world premiere of Waespi's euphonium concerto.

If the set amount is not reached within the specified time, all donations are returned to the donors.

More info:
wemakeit.ch/projects/unerhoert-die-zuger-sinfonietta-auf-neuen-pfaden

In 2013, the Swiss Youth Music Competition (SJMW) welcomes over 1000 young musicians who have spent many weeks preparing intensively for this national event. From March 15 to 17, the entrada competitions will take place in Arbon, Basel, Geneva, Lugano, Neuchâtel, Unterägeri and Winterthur.

In addition to the chamber music disciplines, the piano and brass instruments are in the foreground. There will be performances in the following disciplines:
Solo: Piano, organ, harpsichord, trumpet and cornet, trombone, euphonium, tuba, horn and E-flat horn, guitar and mandolin, classical singing.
Duo: Chamber music free repertoire, early music (before 1750) and new music (after 1950).
Ensemble: Chamber music free repertoire, early music (before 1750), new music (after 1950), recorder ensembles, percussion ensembles.

As usual, all first prize winners qualify for the final. This will take place from May 3 to 5 at the Musikschule Konservatorium Bern.

The participants' presentations and the prizewinners' concerts are open to all visitors to the competition.
Information: www.sjmw.ch
 

One focus of the festival is on experimental silent films from the 1920s: shortly after the First World War, the first attempts were made to further develop painting through the medium of film. They go hand in hand with efforts in music to free sounds from their harmonic "shackles". In recent years, numerous new film soundtracks have been created, some of which will be played together with their historical predecessors.

Students of the Lucerne School of Art and Design use the rich visual language of Stockhausen's "Indianerlieder" as a starting point for an innovative realization of the work in film and live video.

Furthermore, the Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen (*1976) uses his video works to complement and clarify his musical language, thus turning the conventional relationship between music and image on its head.

The festival also presents works from the Contemporary Music Studies and Jazz study areas: the Music and Art Performance, Interpretation in Contemporary Music and Jazz study programs have intensively explored the dialogue between the media of image and sound, partly on the basis of historical silent film and partly in collaboration with contemporary video artists.

Admission to the "Film & Music" festival is free (collection). The complete program is available at: www.hslu.ch/film-und-musik