Anna Gebert was a scholarship holder of the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation from 2005 to 2007 with a subsequent one-year contract as a permanent assistant with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

From 2011 to 2018 she was first concertmaster of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and from 2007 to 2011 deputy concertmaster of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. She has been a lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2020.

The third prize was won by Marek Kozak from the Czech Republic. The first prize is endowed with 40,000 francs, the second with 30,000 francs and the third with 20,000 francs. 36 musicians were admitted to the Zurich competition.

Anton Gerzenberg is the son of pianist Lilya Zilberstein. He also performs as a duo with his brother Daniel Gerzenberg and founded the ensemble for new music ÉRMA in 2019.

The Géza Anda Foundation was established in 1978 in memory of the pianist Géza Anda, who died in 1976, by his widow Hortense Anda-Bührle. It aims to promote young pianists in the musical spirit of Géza Anda and has therefore organized an international piano competition in Zurich every three years since 1979. The Géza Anda Foundation undertakes to accompany prizewinners for three years as a mentor and, among other things, to provide performance opportunities.

The Opera Engiadina Association was founded in January last year as the successor to Opera St. Moritz AG and the Opera Club. It runs the Cor Opera Engiadina, the Opera Forum Engiadina with smaller events throughout the year and the Opera Engiadina Festival, which takes place every summer. The latter alternates between opera productions and opera choir concerts. Festival director and vice-president of the association is Claudio Danuser.

The concerts planned for 2021 had to be postponed until next year due to coronavirus. However, Rossini's opera "La Cambiale di Matrimonio" will be performed in Romansh for the first time as "La spusa chapriziusa". The plot, directed by Ivo Bärtsch, will be supplemented with dialog in German. The ensemble (Sara-Bigna Janett, Gianna Lunardi, Daniel Bentz, Flurin Caduff, Chasper-Curò Mani, Martin Roth) and the Kammerphiharmonie Graubünden will be conducted by Claudio Danuser.

Further information and performance dates:

www.operaengiadina.ch
 

As the new resident orchestra of the Andermatt Concert Hall, the Swiss Orchestra combines Swiss symphonic music with repertoire works. The orchestra is accompanied by renowned soloists. Members of the orchestra now also perform in chamber music concerts.

From January 1, 2022, the Swiss conductor and musicologist Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer will take over the concert operations of Andermatt Music on behalf of Andermatt Swiss Alps. This means that concerts will take place in the alpine concert hall all year round. The artistic strategy with three program levels is planned for at least five years. The existing artistic director team from England will continue to be responsible for the current programs until the end of 2021.

Andermatt Swiss Alps will also become a platform for local music, with performances by bands from Uri and classical family concerts. The "Young Artists" format to promote young artists will be continued. Finally, international orchestras, conductors and soloists will perform in Andermatt.

In 2020, income from copyrights in Switzerland and abroad amounted to CHF 144.1 million. This is CHF 16.8 million or 10.5% less than in the previous year (CHF 160.9 million). Accordingly, composers, lyricists and publishers of music will receive less money from copyrights: CHF 120.4 million can be distributed to rightholders in 2021 - almost CHF 15 million less than last year.

As expected, revenue fell primarily in the area of performance rights: while revenue in this area amounted to CHF 52.1 million in 2019, it was CHF 34.4 million in 2020, i.e. CHF 34% less. This decline was mainly due to the concert sector, where income fell by CHF 51%, from CHF 23 million in 2019 to CHF 11.4 million in 2020. In the hospitality sector, income fell from CHF 3.7 million to CHF 1.99 million. CHF 3.7 million to CHF 1.99 million (-46%), for entertainment events it fell from CHF 2.36 million to CHF 1.24 million (-48%) and for cinemas from CHF 2.6 million to CHF 1.07 million (-58%).

Suisa was only able to partially offset this decline in other areas. Income from broadcasting rights rose slightly from CHF 63.6 million in the previous year to CHF 64.3 million in 2020. The feared declines, e.g. due to lower advertising income from television and radio stations due to the cancellation of major events, did not materialize for the time being.

Revenue in the online sector also increased last year, from CHF 14.5 million to CHF 17.1 million (+17.4%). This is due in particular to higher income from the subsidiary Suisa Digital Licensing and Mint Digital Services, the joint venture with the US company Sesac.

Suisa is also expecting less income for composers, lyricists and music publishers this year and next. It will take months, if not years, before concerts and major events with music can be held again on the same scale as before the pandemic.

Annual Report 2020: www.suisa.ch/geschaeftsbericht

Detailed article on the annual results: https://blog.suisa.ch/de/ein-beachtliches-ergebnis-trotz-covid/

The Swedish pianist and cognitive scientist has accepted the call to the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics on April 1, 2021. As Director of the new department, he will initially direct the research there on a part-time basis, then full-time from September 2021.

Ullén's interests include the connections between cultural engagement, mental well-being and health, as well as the complex interaction between genetic preconditions and environmental factors in musical expertise.

Fredrik Ullén was born on April 13, 1968 in Västerås, Sweden. He received his doctorate from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 1996. He was appointed Associate Professor there in 2006 and Full Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2010.

In addition to his academic career, Fredrik Ullén is an internationally recognized concert pianist. He completed his piano studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in 1993. His discography currently comprises 25 titles, including complete recordings of György Ligeti's piano works and Sorabji's "Transcendental Studies", one of the greatest cycles ever written for piano solo.

Born in Basel in 1958, Thomas D. Meier worked as a research assistant at the University of Bern and in public relations and as a member of the museum management team at the Bernisches Historisches Museum. From 1996 to 2003, the doctor of history and English was director of the Museum of Communication in Bern, and in 2003 he was elected director of the Bern University of the Arts.

He was President of the Conference of Swiss Universities of the Arts from 2004 to 2011, President of the Rectors' Conference of Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences in 2013 and 2014 and a member of the board of the swissuniversities association, which was responsible for preparing the future joint Rectors' Conference of Swiss universities. Thomas D. Meier was elected Rector of the Zurich University of the Arts by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences Council in December 2008 and is currently in his third term of office.
 

For those employed in a cultural profession in the cultural sector (e.g. musician in an orchestra), the decline was more or less limited (minus 1.8 percent), whereas for non-cultural professions in the cultural sector (e.g. accountant in a theater), the decline was much greater at 6 percent, and for cultural professions outside the cultural sector (e.g. graphic designer in a bank) it was even higher at 7.8 percent.

In 2020, 298,000 people were counted as working in the cultural sector in Switzerland. This is 4.7% fewer than in 2019, when there were still 312,000. This is the sharpest decline since 2010. The decline recorded in 2016 and 2017 was significantly lower. On average, however, the number of cultural professionals grew by 1.3% per year until 2019.

Original article:
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/aktuell/neue-veroeffentlichungen.assetdetail.17224093.html

In the first research note, Frédéric Martel, Roman Page, Christoph Weckerle and Simon Grand make a historical comparison with the Great Depression in America, before using qualitative interviews in the second part of the study to provide initial perspectives from the present. The third paper focuses on current statistics on the creative industries in Switzerland. And finally, the fourth research note looks at structural changes: What answers do the creative economies have to the challenges of the crisis?

Researchers at the ZCCE have been analyzing statistical data since 2003 in order to make the dimensions of the creative economies visible. They are now using their methods to measure the potential impact of the coronavirus crisis on the labor market.

Original article: https://zett.zhdk.ch/2021/05/25/ist-der-kulturelle-sektor-systemrelevant/

Musical life needs personalities who normally escape the focus of popular music history because they have left no significant mark either as performers or composers. They work as church musicians, music teachers, music researchers or program managers. The Dutch-born musician Ina Lohr (1903-1983) made her mark on Basel's musical life in all four of these areas. She grew up in a culturally-minded and music-loving family and acquired a broad musical education at an early age. She came to Switzerland in 1929 to study composition. Ina Lohr was one of the founders of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and was a highly regarded lecturer in basso continuo, Gregorian chant, hymnology and domestic music. She was also a keen advocate of the renewal of church music in the period around the Second World War. Making music with lay people was particularly close to her heart, and singing together as a congregation met an essential need for her as a believing and therefore singing Christian. This mission led her to teach at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Basel and to give numerous courses and lectures to mixed and specialist audiences on fact-based yet contemporary church music. She was also interested in improving music and recorder teaching in public schools. As a decades-long collaborator of Paul Sacher in organizing the concerts of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, as a rehearsal preparer and rehearser of this choir, she contributed significantly to the success of Sacher's concert enterprise throughout almost its entire existence. Lohr, who championed Honegger, Krenek, Milhaud and especially Stravinsky, also proved to be an expert in new and contemporary music from the very beginning.

So it was high time that a female author delved into the life and various fields of activity of Ina Lohr, who shaped musical life in Basel for half a century and was one of the pioneers of early music! Anne Smith, herself a teacher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis for almost forty years, has now published a comprehensive biography of this musician, who has also escaped women's music history, and has read countless letters, conducted interviews and compiled musical sources.

Reading the book, one gains an impression of the willpower and hard work of an admirable musical personality, but also of her crises, some of which were caused by illness. At the same time, it provides insights into little-known facets of musical life in Basel and the history of the Schola Cantorum. In her monograph, Anne Smith places a clear emphasis on Lohr's changing relationship with Paul Sacher, with whom she worked in various institutions. Not only does Lohr's contradictory personality come to life, but Sacher also appears in a remarkably new light. Although all the texts are also quoted in the original languages, the publication would benefit from a translation into German.

Anne Smith: Ina Lohr (1903-1983). Transcending the Boundaries of Early Music (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Scripta 9), 514 p., Fr. 82.00 (print), Fr. 66.00 (e-book), Schwabe, Basel 2020, ISBN 978-3-7965-4106-3

Oversized orchestral oratorios have been a problem for today's choirs, which no longer consist of 200 or more singers as they did in the mid-19th century, and not just since the coronavirus.

The Carus series "Great Works in Small Orchestration" takes this into account: for example, with the exemplary new chamber orchestra edition of the popular Mendelssohn psalm cantata How the stag cries by Jan-Benjamin Homolka. It retains the original sound, but reduces the wind section to a quintet for reasons of balance.

The Doblinger publishing house in Vienna is taking a different approach, having recently published three magnificent Brahms works in "chamber versions": Naniewhich Alto rhapsody and the Song of Destiny. Urs Stäuble has created intelligent arrangements for string quintet and flute, which contain all the important musical elements in a sophisticated way, even if the smaller instrumentation reduces the spectrum of instrumental timbres. For example, haunting timpani passages are excellently replaced by the pizzicato of the cello in the lower register. The chorus and thus the poetry of Schiller and Goethe come across all the more forcefully in these arrangements. - A side effect that should not be underestimated.

Really worthwhile purchases for ambitious chamber choirs who want to create oratorio masterpieces at low cost and with low personnel expenditure.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: The 42nd Psalm, Wie der Hirsch schreit, MWV A 15, arranged for chamber orchestra by Jan-Benjamin Homolka; score, CV 40.072/50, € 43.00; piano reduction, CV 40.072/03, € 9.50; Carus, Stuttgart

Johannes Brahms: Schicksalslied, for choir and chamber ensemble arranged by Urs Stäuble; score, D 46 102-PA, € 18.95; set of parts, D 46 102-ST, € 29.95; Doblinger, Vienna

Id.: Nänie; score, D 46 100-PA, € 14.95; set of parts, D 46 100-ST, € 24.95

Id.: Rhapsody; score, D 46 101-PA, € 14.95; set of parts, D 46 101-ST, € 24.95

Born in 1976, Vögeli lived in Schaffhausen and graduated from the Lucerne School of Music. In addition to the guitar, he also plays the dobro, lapsteel and banjo. His musical versatility brings him together with musicians from various fields.

In addition to his jazz quartet "flyOut", he worked with the jazz crossover band "Ghost Town" and as a solo artist "Voegeli Solo", and was a member of the space folk combo "Grünes Blatt". He has performed as a guest artist with the Zurich Free Opera and the Ensemble for New Music Zurich, among others.

Vögeli has played concerts and tours with Sylvie Courvoisier, Bugge Wesseltoft, Elina Duni, Corin Curschellas, Hendrix Ackle, Vera Kappeler, Andreas Schaerer (Hildegard Lernt Fliegen), Julian Sartorius. Christian Weber and many others. He has received awards from the City and Canton of Schaffhausen and the International Lake Constance Conference (IBK).
 

The composer, who was born in 1906 in West Bohemia and died in Prague in 1973 after a musically varied life, is best known as the author of the Sonata for double bass and piano, written in 1946. He also made a name for himself as a formative double bass teacher of the Prague School, as a composer for various chamber music ensembles and orchestral works and as a conductor.

While the Sonata for Double Bass and the rarely performed Double Bass Concerto mostly move in chromatically extended tonality, the Four pieces more in the direction of a modality based on fourths and fifths. With its concise rhythms, the refreshingly rapid succession of contrasting dynamics, the contrasting tempi and the tonal shifts between light and dark, expressive and impressionistic, her tonal language can be seen as connected to tradition, yet individual and at home in the 20th century.

The Prelude (Moderato to Allegro) explores the extremes of dynamics and articulation. The Burlesque in ABA form begins with playful, Scherzo-like staccatos in the piano and ends in an exaggerated stretto in fortissimo. The fine, cantabile Nocturne follows a Tarantella. František Hertl skillfully plays with its idiom and uses dissonances to lend it an expressiveness that goes far beyond the entertaining.

Editorial errors are to be regretted. Presumably the original printing plates were copied without proofreading, resulting in accidental errors as well as incorrect notes and slurs and the corresponding need for detective work. In view of the technology available today, it is incomprehensible that the piano score in the Prelude the double bass part is notated in the octave, but in the other three pieces it is notated a major second lower or a minor seventh higher than the actual sound, i.e. the notation required for the solo double bass in D is adopted. In his arrangement, Stefan Schäfer has limited himself to a few technical bowing recommendations in favor of interpretative freedom.

The new edition enriches the otherwise not too abundant chamber music repertoire for double bass players.

František Hertl: Four pieces for double bass and piano, double bass part arranged by Stefan Schäfer, BA 11556, € 18.95, Bärenreiter Prague