Are you a board member of your orchestra association and have to deal with various administrative issues? For example, are you about to choose a new conductor and need to draw up a new contract? Do you have to deal with staff absences due to illness (e.g. conductor, concertmaster) and are wondering what the situation is regarding the obligation to continue paying wages? Do you already have a privacy policy on your website and are your association statutes still up to date?

The EOV provides its member orchestras with templates and information sheets on these and other administrative and legal topics on its website under the heading "Offers for orchestras". Register with your orchestra administration visa. We have revised and updated many of the documents over the past year. Take advantage of this assistance from our experts and simplify your administration. Documents on the following topics are currently available to download free of charge:

- Model contract for conductors

- Sample contract for soloists and newcomers

- Job reference template

- This belongs in the reference

- Correct AHV/IV/EO/ALV settlement

- Recommended tariff for newcomers to the SMV

- Conductors' fees SBC recommendations

- Templates for payslips (based on net payment, on gross amount without and including vacation)

- Model statutes for amateur orchestras

- Model contract for lending sheet music between orchestras

- Sample data protection declaration for orchestral associations

- Profit and capital taxation for orchestra associations

- Value added tax for orchestral associations

- Accident and daily sickness benefits insurance for orchestral societies

 

Free download at:
www.eov-sfo.ch > Offers for orchestra
Take this opportunity to also discover the other EOV offers for member orchestras, e.g. the sheet music library, partner courses, instrument insurance and more.

Zainab Lascandri aka Signup (Z), is a parent and a Black transdisciplinary artist. Z lives in Zurich and has been part of the electronic pop, punk, rap, techno, new wave music duo " None of Them " since 2012. H spoke to Z by phone. Claire Huguenin (C) and Malcolm Braff (M), jazz musicians, live and work as artists, mother and father, founders and co-founders of the Maison-Matrice, both an associate artistic center and their place of residence, located in the Jura bernois in Crémines. We met C and M with them at the "Maison-Matrice" in Crémines. The following scene takes place on a dark afternoon at the end of the morning, when their children and ours play in front of the old scierie together with other residents of the house.

In front of the old sawmill of the Maison-Matrice :

Enfant : Mamaaaaan j'ai faim

C : alors il faut faire le feu

H : SONART proposed to us to write about a crucial moment in life and career - becoming a parent. An article on the repercussions, the advantages and the disadvantages of having children as musicians... but...

C : HAHA !

M : Vous voulez faire de la musique ? Avez-vous pensé à faire des enfants ?

CMHR : *rigolade

A week earlier entre Bienne et Crémines, avec C on the phone :

C : (takes off.) alors la vie d'artiste... tu vois en ce moment je sutout surtout maman de trois enfants et co-gestionnaire de la Maison-Matrice. I give occasional concerts or recordings, and I see these moments as a respiration in relation to my daily life as a very busy demeurant.

H : Mais avec la Maison-Matrice tu te dévoue à un projet culturel, de partage et d'accueil artistique. And the children are also part of it - that's also what interests us.

Scene from the music video "Hyenas on the Beach" by "None of Them": In the earth-colored room \ a black guitar case upholstered in flesh ochre \ in it a brown sewage pipe phallic \ behind it the black child \ the microphone the umbilical cord the cable \ slides down \ the pipe the opening the hole \ through the case \ a "Hey" \ the person at the end \ of the open sewage pipe\Signup sings into the microphone

Avec Z au Téléphone :

Z : I became a parent when I was 23, in 2004. In many situations - unless someone asked me specifically - I never actually said: I am a parent. There is a risk involved in saying you are a parent. Because the capacities are different, the risks for working together. And also for the image. Especially in the context of performance or music and when you're on stage. So - I don't see it like that anymore - but in a way, your attractiveness is at stake.

C : Is the mother the antinomy of the séduisante woman? I have the memory of a photo on this subject, of an American singer who made voices on the piano and who at the time was sitting in a chaise à bascule, her feet in her belly, a rifle in one hand and a cochonnet in the other. Il y avait clairement une notion de matrone.

Z : This struggle with my (self-)image of the parent read as a mother, and my artistic identity as a musician - that was actually something that accompanied me. This dark side in my music represented an echo of this state. It's also the visual of our music videos that reflects this insecurity with the character of the mother. I couldn't identify with it at all. I decided at some point: ah ok, there are different ways to be a parent.

C : Where certain people have a regulated day - like paper to music - with us, these are especially the major axes that are clear. For example: I am fully available for the family, I watch my children on demand during their first three years. Our presence is therefore maximized at the house, we also go to school at home, and in terms of the precise schedule of the day... well, it's very jazzy, especially with the affairs of the association, which are always disruptive.

Z : And I can go my own way, even if I don't have many role models around me. It was a lonely path.

C : The desire to be a mother was current at the time of the launch of Maison-Matrice, a spontaneous desire to be a mother in an extremely radical way, combined with the desire to be useful, the desire to serve. What I didn't want was to live in a "prototype" apartment with our family, I needed to open up and I had every interest in placing the family home in a place like this.

M : For me, there is a desire not to close the spheres of life. And in fact, sometimes with Claire you find yourself with a baby who's on stage while you're training to do our concert as a duo...

C : Oui or bien je m'arrête au milieu du concert pour allaiter, et je continue de chanter avec bébé dans les bras.

M : Yes, so there is a real need to integrate all aspects of life into a single, multiple reality. And now we are probably in the phase of *cris d'enfants sur baby(tele)phone* ah cette fois il est réveillé ! *pause*

M : I had the phase or the fact of having children was seen as a detriment to my own art and my time of creation. This sentiment for me was really deconstructed when I decided to put my ego into my role as an artist. If everything is deconstructed, it's much less tendu, it's much less in friction - I think.

Z : When I got pregnant I was still living in a shared flat. My idea was always that I could raise my child in this shared flat *laughs* which didn't work out. And then we lived with the father of my children in this small family, cooperative apartment, which didn't make me very happy. But we had a lot of support from his parents, especially his mother, and also from friends. With the first child, I totally used my network *laughs*. I also wanted my child to be raised by different perspectives and people. It then became much more difficult with the second child. And then after the separation - as a romantic relationship, so to speak - we continued to live together as a family for another 6 years. I think it would have been different if I'd had the financial means to do things differently. Most things stand and fall with financial resources. I later moved into a shared flat and was the person who commuted. I was always half in the family home - where my father lived permanently with the children - and half in the shared flat. And we did that until the kids were like: "Hey, it's ok. Just come and cook, you can go home later." By then they were teenagers. And before that, I just slept in one or the other child's bed. So I didn't have my own room. I was always like this: child 1, child 2.

M : And then, with the arrival of the third child, you clearly live a little bit more.

 

The man in the caravan dazed \ with glasses in virtual worlds \ immersed the mother with cutter \ knife in hand sings \ " I don't know what to do to kiss " \ " I'm like " the hand the knife \ a cut in the stomach the blood \ " A quarter in a quarter in a house \ A small space to here \ And I don't know where to go \ But I don't know where I can lay."

 

Z : My children's father had a bar. It wasn't so child- and family-friendly. But that's why it worked. Because he was there in the evenings. We still had family ties. And I still have a close relationship with his parents. I think we somehow managed that well *laughs*. Yes, that was what we wanted - or tried - I think.

C : One functions above all with a spontaneous division of roles, in the family as well as in the association. I think there is a deficit at the end where there is sometimes a lack of awareness of the tasks to be carried out, of understanding of the issues and of availability to organize. The means are also limited and the ambition is high, so overwork is really part of the tableau.

Z : Yes, and for me it was like this: my father has lived in Freetown on the west coast of Africa since I was little. And my mother had another child of her own, who is almost the same age as my first child. And she lived in Lausanne - with her family. I lived in Zurich. And yes, she didn't really have the capacity to be a grandmother. And then the question was: when do you get a place in a daycare center? Between six months and a year old, the children had a place in a daycare center and from then on they went for at least three days. And when I was doing a bachelor's degree, they were in nursery for 100 %. I think the good thing was that I was young at the time and had energy. And the children could often spend the night with grandparents or neighbors. It wouldn't have been possible without my partner's grandparents.

 

In the light of the blue hour \ the black child dressed in white \ the mother on the bed \ the black body under a white sheet \ the child neatly tucked away \ the eight-armed cephalopod octopus \ in the mother's open belly \ the wound the cut \ la césarienne the hole. \ belly with the bostitch \ staples the child with " CLACK CLACK " \ to the reversal of birth \ the blood-red dead mollusk in the belly \ utérus matrice \ the white breast milk cake wafting \ fluidly deforming in the space between.

 

Outro : Être (m)other et musicienne, c'est composer à plusieurs mains et voix, souvent dans l'improvisation, avec des temporalités et des besoins multiples. But beyond the individual blending of parenthood and artistic practice, these récits invite us to rethink more broadly the conditions of creation: how our worlds make care work un/visible, what structures are missing and emerging, and what new collective forms of making could emerge from this. In other words, il s'agit pas seulement d'une affaire privée, but d'un terrain commun, où se (re-)mix Kunst, Leben, Ökonomie et politique.

Lukas Bolt, co-responsible for expertise at the SCV, gives an insight into current developments.

 

Lukas Bolt, why do choirs actually want to sing in front of experts?

II see two main needs. On the one hand, choirs would like to receive a competent external view of their performance and find out what they can work on to make their performances even more successful. On the other hand, there is also the need to compare themselves with other choirs.

 

How do you deal with these two needs?

The focus of the singing festivals should be on further development. The choir and, in particular, the choir management should take away specific points that they can continue to work on. We would like to satisfy our desire to compare and measure ourselves more and more at choir competitions, which we also organize on a regular basis.

 

What characterizes an :n expert :in choral singing ?

On the one hand, as a choir director, you need a lot of experience with choirs at different levels, from amateur to (semi-)professional choirs. The second very important aspect is to give the choirs comprehensible and support-oriented feedback. This requires a lot of interpersonal skills. Experts also take part in the regular further training courses we organize in order to keep up to date with the latest technical and pedagogical developments.

 

How does singing in front of experts actually work, what can a choir that has never done this before imagine?

This currently varies depending on the singing festival. Usually, two experts listen to a performance and one expert gives constructive feedback and, if desired, a grade. We have about a quarter of an hour per choir for this. Half of this is with the entire choir or the board, the other half is with the choir director alone, as this allows us to go into more detail on technical topics. The choir directors also value this outside view from colleagues enormously.

 

You have made some changes to the expert system in recent months. What specifically?

We used to have a huge Expert :inside list of up to 100 people. However, many of them were never used. We therefore had to reduce the list and will only work with around 50 people in future. For example, it was important to us to have a mix of younger and older experts. To ensure that everyone is regularly deployed, I and the person responsible for French-speaking Switzerland, Caroline Meyer, are in charge of coordination.

50 years of music is much more than a span of time: it forms a melodic arc across generations, a resounding bridge between the past and an already vibrant future. The SJMW celebrated its half-century with an event that will remain a vivid memory for everyone involved. There was palpable enthusiasm in the air in the halls of the Tonhalle Zurich - an echo of stories and successes that have been linked over decades. Two world premieres crowned the celebration: new, specially composed works by Richard Dubugnon and Daniel Schnyder, which paid tribute to the competition and carried its spirit into the future. No less moving was the performance of former prizewinners as soloists. They formed a reunion of musical excellence and impressively demonstrated how the seeds sown 50 years ago continue to sprout today and bear fruit of rare quality.The beginning of a new chapter

But an anniversary, as glamorous as it may be, is not an end point, but a threshold. While the sounds of the celebrations still reverberate, the SJMW opens a new chapter with the 51st edition of its competition and invites young musicians from all over Switzerland to once again contribute to the history of the competition.

In 2026, the competition is divided into three disciplines - Classica, Composition and FreeSpace - and thus offers spaces ranging from interpretation to creativity.

In the solo category, special attention will be paid in 2026 to the rich timbres of string, wind and percussion instruments. Violin, viola, violoncello, double bass, flute, recorder, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, harp, accordion, dulcimer, pan flute and classical percussion will all be taking part. This diverse sound palette invites you to explore the most varied musical worlds: from the lyrical intimacy of the violin to the archaic, surprising voice of the dulcimer to the pastoral breath of the pan flute and the rhythmic energy of the saxophone.

In the Composition category, young composers are invited to "paint with sound" so that their ideas and inspirations become living scores - fresh and imaginative.

FreeSpace, on the other hand, is a free terrain, a crossroads for improvisation, electronics, performative arts and experimental formats. Jazz and new technologies are heard here as well as multimedia installations.

What makes this competition unique is, as always, its basic idea of giving young people a stage on which they can showcase their talent and dedication - in a dialog that knows no linguistic or cultural boundaries. Those who take part enter a tradition that has already inspired numerous international careers.

The SJMW knows that each participant brings a unique story: a swinging bow, a breath that becomes a melody, a percussion that marks the pulse of the future. This is why the competition is not just a contest, but also a laboratory for growth and a place of encounter where you learn to listen to others and to yourself. The call is therefore clear: to take part in this musical adventure, to contribute your own sound, your own idea of beauty and your own desire to transcend boundaries.

The new half-century is just around the corner, and the first note is already floating in the air - ready to connect with the sounds of all those who have the courage to lift the bow, elicit a sound from their instrument with their breath and make a young, curious heart resound. Whether experienced performers or creators of new forms - the SJMW awaits everyone.

The 2026 at a glance

Registration for all competitions:
November 1-30, 2025
www.sjmw.ch

 

Deadline for submission of projects/videos for Composition and FreeSpace:
November 30, 2025

 

Classica: Entrada competitions:
March 13-15, 2026 in Arbon, Geneva, Lugano, Neuchâtel, Sion, Unterägeri, Winterthur
Final: April 30 to May 2, 2026 in Zurich
Prizewinners' concert on May 3, 2026 in Zurich

The well-known cellist and psychologist Chiara Samatanga, who holds a doctorate from the University of Bern and offers courses for music students at the Bern University of the Arts on practicing, stress, performance anxiety and the psychology of chamber music, will talk about mental states when practicing and performing. The pianist and clinical psychologist Sara Ascenso, who is developing research projects and new university curricula on the subject of musicians' well-being at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, will analyze myths about musicians' well-being with us. She also has some good news.

The German pianist, singer and doctor Pauline Gropp is a lecturer in embodiment and musician's medicine at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. She brings us closer to the personality structure of charismatic stage personalities. The award-winning French vibraphonist, percussionist and mental trainer Sylvie Reynaert teaches at the Strasbourg Conservatory and runs a studio for the mental preparation of musical talents for competitions, exams and auditions, based on the model of mental training for athletes.

 

November 22, 2025, Farelsaal Biel, simultaneous translation German/French

 

Info and registration:
swissmedmusica.ch/healthday

The importance of mental health has increasingly become the focus of public attention in recent years. According to studies, music students experience greater mental stress than the average of their peers. According to the Swiss Health Survey 2022, the number of mental health complaints in the 15-24 age segment is higher than in the population as a whole, at up to 25%. This makes it clear that prevention, early detection and treatment of mental health problems and illnesses is a relevant topic for conservatoire students. According to Horst Hildebrandt, psychosomatic stress is the biggest health problem among music students alongside musculoskeletal complaints. The diagnoses are often complex and frequently require an interdisciplinary approach, as numerous influencing factors are responsible for the development of a complaint. In particular, the quality of teaching, practicing and the level of stage skills appear to be significant influencing factors.Concept of health and resources

According to Health Promotion Switzerland, health is subject to dynamic processes and arises when internal and external resources and stresses are in balance. The interplay between a person's physical, mental and social state plays a central role in this.

Resources are seen as protective factors for health. The individualized development of resources, taking into account the bio-psycho-social model, is therefore of great importance in promoting and maintaining mental health during training.

Resource-oriented approaches aim to develop strategies and patterns of action that can be used for the gradual prevention of psycho-physical stress and illness. The concept of resources varies depending on the theoretical foundation of the approaches. What they all have in common, however, is that they aim to enable the individual, but also institutions, to master everyday training in a self-effective and self-determined manner.

Promoting and maintaining the psycho-physical health of university members can be better supported the broader the range of services on offer. In addition to individual, low-threshold counseling services, curriculum-based courses are important in order to enable the development and expansion of psycho-physical resources as early as possible in training. These include scientifically based and evaluated stress management approaches tailored to the realities of music-making for the stage and everyday student life, mental training, forms of physical training suitable for the stage and the teaching of suitable learning and practice strategies. With a view to prevention, there should also be offers for individual lessons as well as didactic and methodological training in order to train core competencies of a constructive, solution-oriented (self-)instruction style and an appropriate feedback culture.

Research continuously generates new knowledge

There has been an encouraging development in research and teaching on mental health at Swiss music universities. This active role is also reflected in the "Position Paper on Health Education in Tertiary Music Institutions" initiated by Johns Hopkins University. In addition to progress in curriculum development, epidemiological studies and research projects on instrumental and vocal issues as well as on hearing, contributions to stage fright research, for example, should be mentioned, which, in cooperation with universities, are constantly giving new impetus to the promotion of mental health. As a result, resource-oriented training and self-management approaches can be successfully combined with the highly specific requirements of conservatoire training.

Example of a health-promoting network under the umbrella of KMHS:
Swiss University Center for Music Physiology, www.shzm.ch

 

Example of a health-promoting offer anchored in the curriculum:
www.zhdk.ch/departemente/dmu/musikphysiologie

 

Note on further training:
Mental training for everyday professional life in music, Basel University of Music,
17.01.2026 with Prof. Horst Hildebrandt and Judith Buchmann

It is now standard in the world of sport and is slowly beginning to catch on in music: mental coaching. One pioneer is the Strasbourg percussionist and mental coach Sylvie Reynaert. She believes that the music stage, like the sports arena, is a competitive environment that demands performance. Stress has to be dealt with on stage. The strategies required are similar to those in the world of sport.

Reynaert bases her work on the Target Method, a recognized guide to mental preparation, as well as on the application of neuroscience. With a systemic approach and the transfer of this knowledge to the artistic field, she offers "action coaching", which originates from top-class sport. Stage presence, a clearly defined strategy and mental work are at the heart of her work. Her coaching is based on "goodwill, listening, availability and practical solutions".

The Swissmedmusica Symposium on November 22, 2025 in Biel offers the opportunity to get to know Reynaert and her way of working in person. Her presentation will be complemented by talks by the cellist and psychologist Chiara Samatanga, who works in Bern, the British music psychologist Sara Ascenso and the German pianist and musicologist Pauline Gropp. A unique opportunity to familiarize yourself with mental training for musicians.

In March 2021, I came across the story of Robert Oboussier and became curious. The renowned Swiss composer was murdered in 1957. When the circumstances of the murder, his homosexual orientation and the male milieu in Zurich became known, the public was horrified and not only his person but also his work was virtually hushed up from then on. What did his music sound like? I only found a few recordings, including 5 Abbreviationen for piano. I discovered sheet music of the complete piece - 25 abbreviations - in the Zurich Central Library and asked Christian Wernicke to arrange an excerpt for the Zurich Mandolin Orchestra (MOZ).

65 years after Oboussier's work was almost completely silenced, the MOZ performed the Abbreviationen on April 2, 2022 at a festival organized by the Swiss Plucked Music Association. Ramon Bischoff, Swiss composer and sound engineer (www.nomar.ch), also took part in this festival, as his piece "Schwärme" was premiered by the association's orchestra zupf.helvetica. Ramon became aware of the story and was very concerned - then he began to research it.

In the interview, Ramon said that the many gaps he encountered were the main concern at the beginning of the project: there are hardly any photos, almost nothing personal from his life, an incomplete estate, few sound recordings and only a few public writings about the works. Ramon found the discrepancy between the historical appearance of the compositions, which were often premiered to great acclaim in prestigious venues, and their current absence from the repertoires of musicians and concert halls extremely unusual. The idea of finally making Oboussier's music audible again on the 125th anniversary of his birth began to grow.

Ramon selected seven musically significant compositions from 1921 - 1948 and found professional musicians who wanted to bring this music back to life with him. The recordings were made in 6 months with a wide variety of instrumentations - from solo piano to string orchestra. And as a bonus, the excerpts of the abbreviations were also recorded with the MOZ. Most of the selected works are world premiere recordings - in other words, they were recorded for the first time. Parallel to the work in the recording studio, rights had to be clarified, sponsors motivated, foundation applications written and, with NAXOS, a renowned label found to publish the music production.

Ramon originally planned an extensive booklet for the CD in order to do justice to the socio-cultural and historical significance of the work and its concealment. This idea grew into a book publication, which brought with it unexpected dimensions and new challenges in terms of content. The contributions by the seven authors have very different perspectives from the fields of music theory, media, history and sociology. The account of a contemporary witness completes the picture in a very personal way. The bilingual publication (DE/FR) also contains the first complete catalog raisonné.

My aim was to revive a work with the hope that the idea would be carried forward and the music rediscovered. My hopes were more than exceeded.

Ramon writes: "Robert Oboussier's music is an expression of his political, social and humanistic convictions. It is important to me that his works continue to convey the values for which he stood up artistically. [...] On the 125th anniversary of Robert Oboussier's birth, I hope that his music will once again be played and performed more frequently and that it can have a new impact as a symbol of social equality."

In the fall, a series of concerts, panels and readings will take place (see flyer) and the MOZ will also perform at the first two concerts.

So many wonderful and creative people were involved in this project that, in order to do them all justice, I would just like to refer to the homepage (www.oboussier.ch), where all the people and further information can be found in German, French and English.

 

Information on

project and music streaming: www.oboussier.ch

Music CD: "Robert Oboussier. World Premiere Recordings"; NAXOS label in the Musiques Suisses series (www.naxos.com)

Book publication: "Robert Oboussier. Beiträge zu einem verschwiegenen Opus"; Ramon Bischoff (ed.); Verlag edition clandestin (www.edition-clandestin.ch)

Zurich Mandolin Orchestra: www.mo-zuerich.ch

Wednesday morning, May 28, at Bern train station: I keep seeing people with instrument cases. "Are these people traveling with us to the European Orchestra Festival in Avignon?" I ask myself. In fact, all the registered participants from all over Switzerland arrive punctually at the Schützenmatte in Bern, so that our EOV-hired car full of enthusiastic orchestra musicians can depart as planned at 11.30 am. I meet some new, but above all many familiar faces in the car. Many are infected by the same virus: once you've taken part in a European orchestra festival, you want to experience it again. Brigitte Köppel, one of the participants, puts it like this: "We've already experienced Tallinn and St. Petersburg, Cremona and Bergen and everything has always worked out. It's a great event every time!"

In order to make participation in the festival as easy as possible, the EOV, under the leadership of Hedi Boller, herself a former long-standing board member and now an honorary member of the EOV, organized a joint car trip for individual participants from Switzerland.

Travel to Avignon by car hired from the EOV

The car journey is pleasant until we run into a major traffic jam on the last 120 kilometers. This does nothing to dampen the good mood. We are all the more pleased to have dinner together at the Grand Hotel in Avignon, where most of our participants are staying. We really appreciate the comfort of our hotel. Both the hotels and the concert venues are within easy walking distance and are located in or just outside Avignon's historic old town.

The individual workshops start on Thursday morning. As always at such festivals, it is a bit chaotic until everyone has found their workshop and the rehearsals can begin. Once again this year, the European Orchestra Federation EOFed, under whose patronage the festival is organized and of which the EOV is a member, put together a colourful bouquet of workshops: from French (baroque) music to classical, romantic (two workshops: Bruckner and Tchaikovsky) and jazz to film music, there was something for all tastes. The conductors of the workshops were unanimously praised.

On Thursday evening, the opening concert takes place in a historic atmosphere in front of the Palais du Pape in the old town. In very windy conditions (the mistral is a regular guest!), the Alumni Symphony Orchestra of the University of Bern (ALSO), also an EOV member, shines under the direction of Martin Studer with Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (soloist: Alexandre Dubach) and an artfully abridged version of Brahms' Symphony No. 1.

In addition to the ALSO, the largest orchestra participating as an entire ensemble, two other complete EOV orchestras are attending the festival: the Chamber Orchestra of Basel Chemistry (KOBC) and the Orchesterverein Oerlikon, which means that Switzerland, together with the various individual participants, is represented in Avignon with the largest delegation of musicians.

Lots of workshops, final concerts and always a good atmosphere

The workshops continue on Friday in summery conditions. In the afternoon, there is time for sightseeing before the first concerts of the orchestras that have arrived as a whole are on the program in the evening. An Estonian youth orchestra will perform first, followed by the KOBC from Switzerland and finally the Pec Strings from Hungary. A colorful, successful mix that beautifully demonstrates the diversity of orchestral music.

Saturday is then all about the final concerts of the individual workshops: At lunchtime in the large hall, "La Scala" (yes, there is one in Avignon!), and in the evening outside on the island in the Rhone just outside the old town, the results of two days of rehearsals (and several hours of practice at home beforehand) are presented to a cheerful and good-humored audience. "I enjoyed the workshops. I was very impressed that everyone produced such sophisticated, beautiful music in such a short space of time, and the fact that I was able to take part right in the middle of it was an experience for me," says Helene Steiner from the EOV group. After the concert in the evening, there will be a farewell buffet in the open air.

Although there is also a slight delay on the return journey on Sunday due to traffic jams, the journey is very pleasant. Shortly before 5 p.m., all participants of the EOV trip arrive safely back in Bern. "I liked the great atmosphere and I thought it was nice that the musicians came from so many different countries," says Therese Berger, summarizing the impressions of the last few days on behalf of everyone.

 

The EOFed Festival briefly explained:

-The European Orchestra Federation EOFed organizes the festival with local partners.

-The festival takes place every 3 years. Most recently in Plovdiv (BG) in 2022, before that in Bergen (N) in 2018, Cremona (I) in 2015 and Tallinn (EST) in 2012.

-The festivals offer orchestral workshops ranging from baroque to contemporary music, from film music to jazz. When registering for the festival, all musicians indicate their priority list and are then allocated accordingly.

The Arosa Music Course Weeks take place between June and October with around 1450 participants from Switzerland and abroad. Several courses are specifically dedicated to promoting young talent:

French horn course - for over 30 years under the direction of Stefan Ruf and Heiner Krause. Almost 40 children and young people from the Basel area travel to Arosa every year.

Violin course - For 25 years under the direction of Jens Lohmann with 20-30 young participants every year.

Children's and Youth Orchestra Week - This year it took place for the 20th time under the direction of Verena Zeller. Therese Hauser will take over as artistic director from 2026.

Youth Chamber Music Week - In October under the direction of Katharina Stibal, Noëmi Rueff and Jonas Kreienbühl. Special feature: close cooperation with the Swiss Youth Music Competition (SJMW). Every year, up to ten runners-up in the SJMW take part free of charge.

Children and young people are also welcome in many other of the 132 music course weeks. They benefit from a discount of CHF 100 on the regular course fee; special children's courses are even cheaper. Thanks to the support of various foundations, generous scholarships can also be awarded.

"arosa music academy"

The "arosa music academy" as part of the Arosa music course weeks includes two special master classes at the highest level. The first week under the direction of Prof. Lars Mlekusch is offered for accordion and saxophone and the second week under the direction of Markus Fleck for violin, viola and cello. In addition to daily individual lessons with university lecturers, there are intensive chamber music lessons.

Hans Schaeuble Award

The Hans Schaeuble Foundation Zurich has supported the Arosa Culture Association for many years and also attaches great importance to promoting young musicians and chamber music ensembles. The award and the recognition prizes are presented to outstanding participants of the two "arosa music academy" weeks.

97 delegates from a total of 62 EOV orchestras traveled from all over Switzerland to Solothurn on 26 April for the EOV Delegates' Meeting. This meant that a very pleasing proportion of almost a third of all member orchestras took part in the 105th Assembly of Delegates. 47 orchestras had sent their apologies.

They were joined by the full board of the association and around a dozen guests from various music associations, Myriam Schleiss as representative of the Federal Office of Culture and the outgoing President of the Swiss Music Council, Rosmarie Quadranti, so that a total of more than 110 people attended the eventful AGM day with its statutory part, networking, musical enjoyment and instructive further training.

The Solothurn Regional Youth Symphony Orchestra (rjso), conducted by Ruwen Kronenberg, welcomed the participants to the Franciscan Church with an energetic matinée concert. The rjso performed at the invitation of the host orchestra, the Solothurn City Orchestra, and proved once again that it is continuing its steep development curve with pieces by Bizet (excerpts from Carmen), Shostakovich (from the film The Gadfly) and Bruch (Kol Nidrei).

Exchange of ideas over lunch

The lunch that followed in the spacious cafeteria of the cantonal school provided the first opportunity for the delegates to exchange ideas. Over beef stroganoff and vegetable lasagna, there were lively discussions, ideas were presented, questions were asked and follow-up meetings were arranged at the coffee bar.

The statutory part, chaired by EOV President Johannes Reinhard after lunch in the auditorium of the cantonal school, went quickly and smoothly.

The Mayor of Solothurn, Stefanie Ingold, presented the diverse cultural offerings of her city in a welcoming speech.

The minutes of the 2024 AGM and the President's annual report were unanimously approved by the delegates. The 2024 annual financial statements, which closed with a profit of CHF 3697 and capital of CHF 93,379, and the 2025 budget, which included an extra amount for the revision of the communication concept, were also unanimously approved. The delegates unanimously confirmed the auditors Ute Bölle (Orchesterverein Aarau) and Eckhardt Wirth (Orchester des Kaufmännischen Verbands Zürich) for a further term of office.

President Johannes Reinhard explained the 2025 work program. The EOV is taking part in the EOFed European Orchestra Festival in Avignon with a group of individual travelers from the member orchestras over Ascension Day at the end of May. Three EOV orchestras will be traveling as complete ensembles.

Revision of the communication strategy

The regional network meetings for orchestra board members are popular and will be continued. The range of courses on offer will be further expanded in cooperation with partners. The use of the library is to be boosted with the help of a flyer and two online training courses. Various information sheets and contract templates will be revised. The EOV is also developing a new communication strategy.

Following the statutory business, the delegates attended a presentation by Sibylle Spengler on the topic of "Fundraising for orchestral associations" (see separate text) or got to know the baroque city of Solothurn better on a guided tour.

In the early evening, the guests met again at the Soleure bar on the River Aare for an aperitif and enjoyed the perfect end to a successful day.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Bernadette Wiederkehr and Lena Ruoss, the two members of the EOV Board responsible for the AGM, and to the Solothurn City Orchestra, in particular its Vice-President Harry Rüfenacht and President Bettina Brand, for the superb organization of a wonderful AGM day with great added value for all participants.

We are aware that the level of SONART's fee recommendations is considerably higher than the current level for many event organizers in all sectors. Not everyone in the scene can keep up from the outset. But this is precisely why SONART - like all other professional associations in the cultural sector - has issued its recommendations and thus closed a gap: We wanted to know what life-sustaining fees are for composition, songwriting, concert performances, production management and all other musical-artistic activities of music professionals.

SONART was initially guided by the question of how a living wage should be structured. This is comparable to other self-employed professions, for example in the trades, which, in addition to income, also have to cover social benefits, pensions, insurance and investments. The fair fee for a concert of CHF 800 per person may seem high at first glance. However, behind this are three to four hours of presence in the concert hall, countless rehearsal and practice hours, travel, instruments, etc. From this point of view, the fees we recommend are absolutely reasonable.

FairPay - MinimumPay: A bandwidth model for practical use

However, fees on the free market are also a matter of negotiation. Even with the backing of the SONART recommendations, it is still up to the musicians to decide what fees they pay for their performances - their negotiating partners have many other costs and cannot offer a hand in every case. It is also clear to us that in the music scene, musicians are dependent on the organizers; even with the best will in the world, it is not always possible to achieve the maximum if a concert is to take place. That is why the SONART recommendations work with a bandwidth model: FairPay is the level of a reasonable fee, MinimumPay (set between 20 and 25 % lower depending on the category) is the lower limit, which should not be undercut after applying reduction criteria such as the size of the event, professional experience and region.

Cultural promotion: without more funding, the goals are hardly achievable

The Federal Council's cultural message, as well as public and private cultural sponsors, expect the associations to set fee targets and want to make the approval of project support dependent on the question of whether the applicant is willing to pay an appropriate fee. However, without corresponding additional funding for cultural promotion, this practice leads to a shortage and considerably fewer applications for support.

In this constellation, the SONART recommendations are a signal to continue the discourse that began during the pandemic in 2020-2022 in view of the precarious situation in the cultural scene: Ultimately, the aim is to protect tens of thousands of cultural workers - including a good 10,000 to 15,000 freelance musicians. Everyone talks about the great social value and the important role of culture - SONART wants to help ensure that words are soon followed by deeds.

 

All information, the SONART fee recommendations, a fee calculator and questions & answers at www.sonart.swiss/honorarempfehlungen.

 

Michael Kaufmann has been President of SONART since 2020. He is active in cultural and music institutions and is also musically diverse.

For over 150 years, there has been an astonishing variety of schools for aspiring professional musicians in the canton of Zurich. Today, these have all been incorporated into the Department of Music at the ZHdK. The period around the turn of the millennium was particularly marked by mergers, integrations and reorganizations. The merger of the Zurich Conservatory and the Zurich Academy of Music was followed by the merger with the Winterthur Conservatory, the integration of the Drama and Dance Academies, the connection with the Rhythmics Seminar, the courses in school and church music and finally the major merger with the Academy of Art and Design to form today's ZHdK. The different origins and histories of the sub-institutions can still be felt today. But a precise analysis of the institutional changes and the external and internal forces that influenced these changes is still pending. For this reason, the Institute for Music Research at the ZHdK has begun to examine the files and minutes, annual reports and house newspapers. It has become apparent that not even the names of all students and lecturers since the founding of the various schools are known.

Until 1944, there were four institutions in the Canton of Zurich where professional musicians were trained: the Winterthur Music School (from 1952 also a conservatory; founded in 1873), the Zurich Conservatory (founded in 1876), the Zurich Music Academy (founded in 1891) and the José Berr Private Conservatory (1913-1944). There is therefore enough material to show the differences in the development of the schools that have become part of today's Department of Music.

However, when reviewing the written documents, it has also become clear that the most important revolutions are often not named precisely because they were all too familiar to everyone involved at the time.

For this reason, our conference will not only consist of presentations summarizing historical facts about individual sub-schools, but also of open discussions with contemporary witnesses of the time, as previous work has shown that personal constellations, temporary slogans and political calculations were behind the decisions of the time, which in turn determined the atmospheres within the schools concerned. The Bologna reform and the commitment of universities of applied sciences to research also accompanied the processes mentioned in terms of time and content. Ultimately, these retrospectives lead to the question of how the music education of students has changed against the background of institutional changes and whether the achievements of that time have not also brought about setbacks.

The invitation to participate in this conference is therefore addressed to all those who are interested in questions of professional music education, who themselves - within the Canton of Zurich or outside - have taken part in these changes as students or teachers and would like to reflect on them today. The research project "Professional Music Education in the Canton of Zurich" will incorporate the results into further work and aims to place the particularities of developments in Zurich in the broader context of music education in Europe. After all, what would music research be if it did not include the biographical, pedagogical and institutional foundations on which every musician, and thus ultimately the whole of musical life, is based?

According to industry experts, concert promoters and labels have been increasingly struggling with last-minute cancellations of concerts and production dates in recent years. This is apparently due to mental and psychosomatic illnesses. Freelance musicians in particular are feeling the greatly increased pressure to take on tasks such as marketing themselves, which labels and agencies used to do for them. Today, they are expected to maintain a constant presence on social media and build up their fan base themselves. On the other hand, previous sources of income, such as record sales and concert fees, have plummeted. And now the increased use of artificial intelligence in the production of commercial music is threatening to eliminate further sources of income.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the British Musicians' Union (UM) found in a 2016 study that more than two thirds of freelancers suffered from severe anxiety and depression, three times as many as the average population. It has responded with a guide for freelancers to help them consciously deal with the mental and emotional challenges of today.

 

The guide can be found on the web with a search for "A-Young-Freelancers-Guide-to-Mental-Health-and-the-Music-Industry.pdf"

At the beginning of April, the delegates of the Swiss Music Council (SMR) met in a building of the Military Music Competence Center in Aarau. The hosts welcomed the participants to the meeting with an almost half-hour concert by the Military Music Recruit School 16/1-2025. Before the official start of the meeting, both Colonel Philipp Wagner, Commander of the Competence Centre for Military Music, and Dr. Hanspeter Hilfiker, Mayor of Aarau, addressed greetings to those present. The Swiss Music Council would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved once again for the festive setting of the event!

As always, SMR President Rosmarie Quadranti led the meeting eloquently and with a touch of humor. The main item on the agenda was the election of new members for the period 2025 - 2029. Seven previous Board members had announced their resignation at the end of the last term of office. The SMR owes a great deal to their work on the Board, some of which lasted many years. Accordingly, they were bid farewell with much applause and a gift. They were Irène Philipp, David Schneebeli, Elisabeth Karrer, Andy Kollegger, David Burger and Letizia Carigiet.

President Rosmarie Quadranti has also announced her resignation at the end of this term of office because she believes that a person with a "direct line to Bern" can better represent the concerns of the Swiss music scene in politics. National Councillor Stefan Müller-Altermatt from Solothurn, who is already known to many delegates as President of the Parliamentary Group for Music, has been appointed to this position. Stefan Müller-Altermatt was unanimously elected as the new President. However, he will not take office until August 1, 2025, as he will still hold the position of mayor of his place of residence until then. Rosmarie Quadranti will therefore remain President of the SMR until July 31, 2025, but was nevertheless honored on this occasion for her tireless commitment to the SMR with a beautiful speech by Irène Philipp, much applause and a gift.

The SMR is looking forward to working with the new board and will continue to do everything in its power to improve the cultural and educational policy framework in Switzerland for the creation, dissemination, distribution and preservation of music in all its diversity that Switzerland has to offer.