Question from an SMPV member: I am employed part-time at a music school for 30%. However, I don't get paid during my vacation. The school director says that vacations are included in the monthly salary and that I don't benefit from anything during vacations. Is this permissible?

Answer from Dr. Kovacs:

1. The employer must pay the employee the full salary due for the vacation (Art. 329d para. 1 CO, Swiss Code of Obligations). The employee may not be paid less during the vacation than if he had worked during this time. Agreements that place the employee in a worse position are null and void. The mandatory provision of Art. 329d para. 2 CO also stipulates that vacation may not be compensated in cash for the duration of the employment relationship.

2. However, there is an exception to this principle: in the case of irregular employment, it can be difficult to calculate the current vacation pay, as each monthly salary is different and the current year does not yet allow an average salary to be calculated. In such cases, compensation for vacation pay in the monthly salary paid on an ongoing basis is permitted as an exception to the legal text.

However, this is subject to the following conditions: Firstly, the employment must be irregular. Secondly, the portion of salary earmarked for vacation must be clearly and explicitly stated, provided there is a written employment contract. Thirdly, the individual written payslips must show the portion of salary intended for vacation (e.g. 8.33% vacation pay). Simply stating "vacation pay included" is not sufficient. It is necessary for the vacation pay to appear by stating a specific amount and/or percentage, both in the employment contract and on the individual payslips.

If these conditions are not met, the employer must continue to pay the salary attributable to the vacation during the vacation. Under certain circumstances, this may even constitute a double payment if the normal salary was actually paid plus the vacation pay, but this did not meet the aforementioned requirements. The fact that the employee has actually taken the vacation to which they are entitled does not change this.

3. conclusion and answer to the specific question: The music teacher works part-time, but on a regular basis. The vacation pay is not shown either in the employment contract or on the payslips. The music school director's actions are therefore contrary to mandatory law. The teacher can therefore demand back pay for her vacation. The limitation period is 5 years. The salary claim for vacation can be asserted during or after termination of the employment relationship.

Strategically, however, you should always consider whether you should assert claims during the current employment relationship. It is important and right to assert claims. But sometimes it can also cost you your job.

Twenty years ago, the SMPV joined the SGB. The vote on joining was preceded by heated discussions: those opposed to joining felt that the SMPV did not fit into the SGB in terms of the sector, complained that the SGB was too left-wing and that the SMPV should be politically neutral, or emphasized that self-employed people would gain nothing from membership of the SGB. However, the application for membership submitted by several section presidents stated: "This (i.e. joining the SGB) would allow the SMPV to obtain useful information regarding the protection of the profession of music teacher in Switzerland, but also to reach decision-makers in education and culture".
In the end, the delegates were persuaded by the argument that the SGB would protect SMPV members in a crisis situation. In order to be able to pay the SGB contribution of CHF 12.50 per member at the time, they even agreed to a membership fee increase of CHF 10.

What many delegates were not aware of is that the SGB does not, of course, do the trade union work for the association. The association must be the union that recognizes, names and precisely describes the current problems of music teachers in Switzerland and then seeks solutions to the problems.
Sometimes the problems are minor labor law injustices that can be solved by a discussion between a section president and a music school director. However, some problems affect many people and can only be solved through changes to laws and regulations at cantonal or national level. Here, the SGB can at best open doors and arrange contacts with decision-makers.

First doubts

At the 2007 AGM, the CMA submitted a motion to leave the SGB again. The reason given was that the SMPV was not receiving any equivalent value for the CHF 60,000 SGB membership fees per year. The then Central President, Jakob Stämpfli, who represented the SMPV at the SGB board meetings, reported that only one topic relevant to the SMPV in the broader sense was discussed at the board meetings in 2006. The Central Board admitted that it had not considered during the membership discussion that the important issues for the SMPV in education and cultural policy are decided almost 100% at cantonal level, and that the SGB as a national umbrella organization was therefore the wrong forum. However, he conceded that individual sections had had good experiences with the cantonal associations.
However, Rolf Zimmermann (SGB), with the support of Hans Peter Völkle (SMV), succeeded in convincing the SMPV delegates of the advantages of remaining with the SGB.

The crisis

The "big crisis" came in 2020, when the pandemic initially paralyzed everything and severely restricted the music industry, among others, for a long time.
The self-employed were particularly affected, as they received negligible - if any - compensation that was insufficient to cover their living costs. In addition, art teachers of all disciplines were not regarded as artists, but as mere teachers, meaning that they were excluded from support for cultural workers. The SGB stood up for SMPV members when it managed to ban private music lessons in presence during the lockdown. However, the problem of the lack of compensation was not easy to solve, so we did not receive any help there. The SGB immediately passed on its information about new Federal Council ordinances or the possibilities of Suisseculture-Sociale emergency aid to the SMPV Central Presidium. However, as President of the SMPV Bern, I received this information directly from the Canton of Bern just as quickly.
I think it's fair to say that the protection we had hoped for from the SGB in a crisis was not there to the extent we had expected.

Major concerns of the SMPV

1. Creeping job cuts and a lack of unemployment benefits:
   Only those who have earned at least 20% less in the last two years receive unemployment benefit. If a music school teacher loses two to three weekly lessons every second year, they will lose 50% of their original employment in eight to ten years, but will never receive unemployment benefit. Wolfgang Pailer has been pointing this out repeatedly since 2007. Last year, the SGB organized a meeting with SECO for Annette Dannecker, where she was told that changes could only be made in the event of a major revision of the law.
2. The SGB is also unable to help us with the problem that music teachers are only considered by politicians to be in the field of education and not culture, which is why the SMPV, unlike the SMV, is not subsidized and art teachers are at a disadvantage in the event of a crisis.
3. Music educator/music teacher would have to become a registered profession. The SGB could support the SMPV on the long road to title protection.

Room for negotiation

After the 2025 DM decided to leave the SGB at the end of the year, he gave Annette Dannecker a mandate to negotiate - also out of gratitude for the financial concessions made by the SGB over the past three years. Some sections would like to remain with their cantonal confederations and would also be prepared to pay the corresponding cantonal membership fees. A "light membership" with the SGB with virtually no rights but also very low costs, with which the sections would buy the right to remain with the cantonal confederations, would almost certainly be accepted.
In terms of its statutes, however, the SGB can probably only offer a change to associate membership (7.80/member plus the contribution of the cantonal associations). This would require an increase in the SMPV membership fee. The question is therefore not whether the SMPV can afford (associate) membership, but how it assesses the cost-benefit ratio today, and whether it wants to afford it.

Ursula Oppenheimer-Isler began playing the violin at the age of 7, first privately and then at the Winterthur Music School with Aida Piraccini-Stucki.
She obtained her teaching and concert diploma at the Zurich Conservatory with Prof. E. Morawec from Vienna. Master classes at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and study visits to Vienna complemented her training. She then continued her training with Yehudi Menuhin. In 1962, she played at the Gstaad Music Weeks in a soloist ensemble under the direction of Nadja Boulanger and Yehudi Menuhin.

In addition to her successful concert activities as a soloist, chamber musician (she particularly enjoyed duo evenings with violin and piano) and orchestral musician in the Eastern Switzerland Chamber Orchestra, she devoted herself with great dedication to violin teaching.

Through her marriage to Wolfgang Oppenheimer, she became a "Ticino native". In her new home, she performed and gave concerts on many occasions together with renowned colleagues from Ticino. After being primarily a mother for a few years, she also took up teaching again, initially in a private setting.

In 1978/1980 she was appointed violin teacher at the newly founded conservatory in Curio (Malcantone), now the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, where she taught until her retirement for health reasons in 1998.
She was an accredited SMPV/SSPM professional trainer and regularly acted as an expert at SMPV diploma examinations and intermediate examinations and as a juror at various regional competitions of the Swiss Youth Music Competition in Lugano.

In 1993, Ursula Oppenheimer-Isler was elected to the Central Board of the SMPV/SSPM as a representative of Ticino; from 1996 to 1999, she was even Vice President. She also had to step down from these posts in 1999 for health reasons.

She died suddenly but very peacefully in the early afternoon of February 19, 2025, after listening to three wonderful pieces from her much-loved violin literature that morning.

It is very exciting to hear and read from SMPV colleagues about the special concerts, student concerts, courses and cultural participation projects they are planning for the period from June 7 to 28, 2025, and to feel that some of these events are real projects of the heart.

Members usually call us for advice on labor law or music education issues, for support in filling their profiles on my-music-lessons.ch or rent-a-musician.ch  or simply to inform them of a change of address. But now it's about their music and their music education - in other words, about what drives them every day and what they are passionate about. This reminds me a little of the time when the SMPV still offered professional training and was not yet a purely professional association. Back then, the focus was on the daily artistic and pedagogical work of SMPV members and not on the technical and administrative side of things. I personally think it's great that the Tour Musical brings something of this back to us!

The tour events
Apparently, the SMPV members are still reluctant to use the sponsorship brochure designed by the organizing committee and use it to find cooperation partners for their events. But perhaps we will repeat the tour in two to three years' time and then make the brochures available at least a year before the start of the tour so that there is enough time to find sponsors. In any case, most of the events registered so far are taking place without cooperation partners. They can be divided into three groups:

Section events
The Vaud section, for example, has registered the "Palmarès", the concert of the best students in the level examinations, which will take place on June 17 in Villeneuve. On 14 June, the tour will head to the Alte Stadthaus in Winterthur, where the Winterthur/Zurich Oberland section is organizing three concerts for pupils and teachers. The Bern tour music lesson will take place on June 20 and the concertant! in Bern with Eva Röntz, cello and Reto Reichenbach, piano on June 21, and finally the tour will take us to Schaffhausen, where the SMPV music school concert will take place on June 28.

Solo or chamber music concerts by members
In this category, members register concerts or a combination of courses and a concert. Guitarist Hanspeter Krüsi, for example, sets a special accent with his color concert on 11 June in Aathal-Seegräben, where he bathes the church in different colors and then transforms them into music in an improvisational virtuoso manner. Marc-Henri Aubert combines a master class and a recital in Vufflens on June 21, and Adalberto Riva poses the question of whether a piano can sing in his commented concert in Morges on June 28.

Larger events
Violinist Marc Tairraz has submitted what is probably the most spectacular project to date: on June 21, he will unite his amateur orchestra Amati and Amati junior, made up of his young violin students, with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne for an interactive concert on the stage of the Lausanne Opera. The audience solves quiz questions about the program during the concert. On the same day, the GuitarSoundOrchestra under Jürg Moser performs the anniversary concert "30 years GSO" in Boswil. With around 20 guitarists aged between 13 and 26, the GSO is the largest guitar ensemble in Switzerland. On 28 June, the Tour-Musical-ad-hoc-Choir under Johannes Schröder will perform a varied program at the Rosengarten in Bern. If you would like to sing along, you can register at smpv.ch/bern/registration-tour-musical-chor-bern can still register until May 24.

This is just a small selection from the tour program that you can find on tour-musical.ch and more events are being added all the time, and of course we will be happy to add your concert to the tour map if you register it by May 15, 2025 at the latest:  smpv.ch/anmeldeformuar-formulaire-dinscription-modulo-di-registrazione-tour-de-suisse-musical

Answers to the most frequently asked questions
- If you want to register a concert with pupils from your music school, you must discuss this with the music school management. We will then link the event to the music school's homepage and add it to the list of cooperation partners. For example, the Muri-Gümligen music school has allowed our colleague, Elisabeth Ronja Haerdi, to perform the open-air concert with two ensembles from the music school as part of the tour.
- Yes, if you find a cooperation partner in categories C' to F, you may retain the entire sponsorship fee yourself.
- A picture of the performers, the performance venue or an instrument is suitable as a contribution picture for your event.
- The Tour Musical instructions for members and the declaration of consent for your pupils and their parents can be found at smpv.ch under "Downloads".

I will be happy to answer any further questions at marianne.waelchli@smpv.ch

We look forward to your contribution to the Tour Musical!

The Guitar Sound Orchestra under the direction of Jürg Moser performs on June 21 in the old church in Boswil
photo by Renate Moser

Question from an SMPV member: I am a music teacher at a music school and also work as a choir director. After a longer period of illness, the school management only wants to pay me my hours as a teacher as sick pay and claims that my work as a choir director is a contractual relationship and therefore I am not entitled to sick pay. This is despite the fact that the teaching and choir conducting jobs were assigned to me together. Can this be legal?

Answer Dr. Kovacs:

1. The answer to this question depends on whether the activity as a choir director is carried out as part of an employment relationship or as a self-employed activity.
2. Almost any activity can be carried out on a self-employed or employed basis. Differences of opinion regularly arise about this. For this reason, the activity should be described in writing in a contract. In particular, the question should also be clarified as to whether it is an employment or an assignment. Ultimately, it is the wording of the specific contract (and not the title) that determines whether the activity is employment or freelance work. The more precisely this is described, the clearer the legal classification can be.
3. The courts have developed an extensive practice for defining these types of activities. They consider the following demarcation criteria to be essential:
   3a) The following characteristics in particular speak in favor of self-employment:
   - Free determination of working hours by the choirmaster
   - The choirmaster is not bound by the instructions of the choir board and is responsible for his or her own activities.
   - The program is selected by the choirmaster.
   - The choirmaster must pay all social security contributions himself.
   - The choirmaster receives a fee for independent work (not a salary).
   - No remuneration is paid in the event of illness or for vacations.
   3b.) The following in particular argues in favor of self-employment (employment as an employee):
   - The choirmaster is employed as an employee.
   - The choirmaster is part of the organization of the employer (association, school, etc.) and follows its instructions.
   - The program is selected by the employer.
   - The employer pays a salary and deducts social security contributions from it.
   - The employer pays sickness and vacation in accordance with legal requirements.
4. Only in an employment relationship is the continued payment of salary for a limited period of time, depending on the duration of employment, prescribed by law. In contrast, self-employed persons are generally required to provide for themselves and receive nothing in the event of illness. This is subject to cases in which it is expressly stipulated in the specific contract or in a collective employment agreement that benefits are paid by the client in the event of illness.
5. The bottom line is that the individual delimitation criteria must be determined and classified in the present case. The choir director subsequently stated that she also has to follow the music school's timetable for her choir conducting activities and that the concert programs are predetermined. In addition, AHV/IV/EO contributions are deducted from her wages for all activities. In addition, the teaching activity is contractually regulated together with the choir conducting. These are strong indications that both activities are to be treated uniformly as an employment relationship. This means that the sick pay must be paid equally for both activities.

That is why our "Tour Musical SMPV/SSPM" will take place from June 7 to 28, 2025. It is a stage for the artistic activities of our members and for the music education success they demonstrate with performances by their students.
The Tour Musical OC provides you, dear members, with documents for the tour: on our homepage, smpv.ch, can be found under "Downloads/Documents" in"Instructions for members" detailed information about the Tour Musical. You will also find a form "Registration/declaration of consent", which you can have the students performing at your tour event or their parents fill out and sign. This ensures that you are legally protected if videos of your tour event are later published on the interactive map on tour-musical.ch be published.

We include various categories of events on this tour map and in the tour program:

1. section events such as teacher concerts or music lessons that take place during the three tour weeks.

2. concerts by our members (solo, chamber music, choir or orchestra), if the concert organizers agree that part of the performance may be filmed and posted on YouTube, and that this video may be included in the description of the event on tour-musical.ch. In return, we will advertise the event in our tour program.

3. events organized by the sections or individual members especially for the Tour Musical, which can take place with or without cooperation partners.

Events with cooperation partners
The OC has compiled a "Sponsors' Brochure", which you can order by telephone from the Central Secretariat (031 352 22 66) or by e-mail from marianne.wälchli@smpv.ch and which you can use to attract cooperation partners for your tour event. In the brochure you will find a table showing exactly how much the SMPV will donate for which service. In the lower categories, you yourself provide the primary service with your performance or the performance of your students, and therefore you may retain the donation amount. In the higher categories, the SMPV provides services in the form of advertising space, writing and publishing company portraits and landing pages on its various websites. This effort must be compensated. You therefore negotiate the sponsorship agreement with the cooperation partners and the SMPV for these categories. In such cases, the SMPV claims a percentage of the donation amount for its work.

You, the cooperation partners and the SMPV can all benefit from such events. You benefit from the fact that the SMPV advertises your event and from the fact that the sponsors support your event financially. They benefit from advertising for their company - bear in mind that the approximately 2,500 SMPV members teach around 32,000 students of all ages throughout Switzerland. And finally, the SMPV benefits from the fact that the events with cooperation partners open up new circles that get to know the SMPV and also the platforms mein-musikunterricht.ch and rent-a-musician.ch.

Competition
Don't worry, the OC does not presume to be able to judge which member is the most artistically talented or which member teaches best. Rather, the competition is intended to encourage members to organize unusual projects for the tour. The member with the most original performance on a particular tour day will be rewarded with the title of "artist of the day" or "teacher of the day", and on tour-musical.ch a portrait of the member appears, which in turn is linked to their profiles on my-music-lessons.ch, rent-a-musician.ch and the member's homepage.

If you do not wish to take part in the competition, you can do so when you register for the Tour Musical in the Registration form  note.

The SMPV Bern cordially invites young and old, experienced and less experienced singers to sing along to this year's ad hoc open-air choir project. Parent-child or grandparent-grandchild teams are also very welcome!

The colorful program ranges from Swiss folk songs to a well-known pop song to an opera aria with choir. The registered singers will receive a link to the sheet music specially arranged for the concert and to mp-3 files, which they can use to rehearse the program. Five rehearsal dates are offered:
Sat, May 24, 2-5 p.m. at CAP, Predigergasse 3, 3011 Bern
Fri, May 30 19-22 at EGW, Nägeligasse 9/11, 3011 Bern
Sat, May 31, 2-5 p.m. at EGW, Nägeligasse 9/11, 3011 Bern
Fri, June 13, 7-10 p.m. at CAP, Predigergasse 3, 3011 Bern
Fri, June 27, 7-10 p.m. at CAP, Predigergasse 3, 3011 Bern

If you want to sing with us, you must attend at least three rehearsals.

The program, further information and the electronic registration form can be found at here.

The twenty young singers who took part in the final of the singing competition on June 9 included Elvirissima - young voices 2025
at the MaiHof in Lucerne, the Schaffhausen section president, Thomas Weiss, and one or two other board members will select two singers to perform together at this year's St. Katharinental-EXTRA concert. The prizewinners' concert will take place on Sunday, September 7, 2025 in the beautiful Zunftsaal of the Hotel Rüden, Oberstadt 20 in 8200 Schaffhausen.
The SMPV Schaffhausen provides a piano accompanist, covers all expenses and offers a fee of CHF 500 per person.
In the Registration form For the singing competition "Elvirissima 2025" there is an integrated registration field for the special prize. The registration deadline is April 4, 2025.

I joined the SMPV in 1967 after receiving my teaching diploma for piano. Thanks to my initial training as a commercial clerk with a federal certificate of competence and a language study trip to England, I had a very interesting and well-paid job as a trilingual secretary by then. I then started teaching at the Conservatoire de Vevey, which was a branch of the Institut de Ribaupierre in Lausanne. The pay there was so miserable that I started teaching privately. But that wasn't enough either.
The situation only improved when the Vaud section approached Jacques Chapuis and Edgar Willems to offer us training in the Willems method to make this possible. The training in this method allowed us to offer group lessons for very young students aged 4-5 years, whose hearing and sense of rhythm we trained. These courses still exist today. They give the students a good musical foundation to later learn an instrument they like. I will continue SMPV Vaud be eternally grateful for his pioneering work!

After witnessing how disastrously poorly organized the stage exams were, I started to get involved, whereupon I was immediately offered the opportunity to take over the organization of the exams in future. So I was already taking care of the stage exams before I joined the board. In 1975, I was elected to the board during a dramatic AGM at which the entire board resigned. A new board was elected. But when it came to electing the presidency, things got very complicated: We wanted Claire Buenzod. "What a horror: a woman!" It took long discussions before the meeting finally agreed to elect Claire Buenzod as president.
Since then, I have been looking after the secretariat of the Vaud section. My training as a commercial clerk helps me to carry out my tasks with a certain ease. It's always nice to be needed and I still enjoy putting my skills at the service of our section.

It is not easy to summarize the most important events of all these years. The negotiations for recognition by the canton of Vaud and thus for a subsidy to finance the annual examinations lasted from 1977 to 1985. According to public opinion, our profession was considered "not a real profession at all" and there was no need to subsidize music lessons "as it is a hobby".
In 1997, however, despite the financial difficulties of the canton and thanks to the persistence of the president, Claire Grin, we were able to obtain an annual subsidy of CHF 5,000.
These negotiations brought us to the attention of the DFJC (Department of Education, Youth and Culture). In 2009, we were invited to a meeting with the State Councillor, Anne-Catherine Lyon. During the consultation she organized, the president, Marc-Henri Aubert, and part of the board were asked to express our opinion on the preliminary draft of the law on music schools. We reiterated our support for the positions of the AVEM-SSP. We also made a strong request to be recognized as a partner in the Vaud music education landscape.

Thanks to the support of the canton, we can carry out our annual audits with a certain degree of serenity. These exams have changed a lot over the last 50 years. In my early days, students competed anonymously and the teacher was not present during the deliberations to avoid nepotism. You had the feeling that you were being judged by a shadow court. Today, teachers are present at their students' performances and take part in the deliberations. This enables a constructive dialog between the students and the teachers.

From 2010 until today, we have been able to continue organizing our events without any particular incidents. I am very pleased that I have been able to work on the various projects of our section and contribute to the good relations within the Board of Directors.

Of course, there is always room for improvement. I hope that the section will continue its work with enthusiasm and a constructive spirit.

The interview was conducted by Guy Fasel, President of SMPV-Vaud - Translation Marianne Wälchli

Marianne Wälchli The SMPV tariffs are set by those present at the AGMs or GMs of the 15 sections. If a new tariff is decided, it applies in principle with immediate effect. It is up to the sections to decide whether they set semester rates, individual lesson rates or both, whether there are also rates for group lessons and whether other lesson lengths are listed in addition to the rates for 60 and 40 minutes. The rates for adult lessons are slightly higher than those for lessons for children and young people. Some sections define a discount compared to the adult rate as a percentage, others set specific rates for lessons for children and young people.

In 2024, we received many inquiries and requests about the tariffs, and I can only strongly recommend that anyone who would also like a tariff for group lessons or for a 30-minute lesson, or who thinks their section's tariffs are too low or too high, go to the AGM/GM, present these requests there and vote on them. Interestingly, quite a few non-members called who "don't need the SMPV otherwise" but would like to see this or that change on the tariff lists. Of course, they can't have a say.

The level of tariffs is always the subject of heated debate at meetings. There is the view that the tariffs should be adjusted annually in line with inflation, and there is the view of those who would prefer to lower the tariffs because they are afraid that higher tariffs could deter potential students.
The tariffs are standard tariffs, which means that no member can be forced to charge these tariffs if they lose many students as a result. Nevertheless, it makes sense to deviate as little as possible from the tariffs when setting prices for private lessons. It is often surprising what adult students in particular are willing to pay for good lessons. It is not only the tariffs that are adjusted for inflation, but usually also the salaries of our students or their parents. And we must not forget that in addition to the teacher's actual salary, the teaching fee must also cover all social security contributions (AHV, pension fund), the rent for the classroom and infrastructure costs, occupational accident insurance, business insurance, professional association contributions, possibly legal protection insurance, further training costs, costs for instrument maintenance such as piano tuning, costs for sheet music and other teaching materials. Depending on the number of students, even with a lesson rate of CHF 120, there may not be much left over.

It is therefore one of the tasks of the SMPV as a professional association to insist that the rates are not set too low and to encourage members to actually charge the standard rates. After all, you know your students and, if someone is particularly talented but cannot afford the standard rate and therefore only attends lessons irregularly, you can accommodate this person a little and "give them some time".

Private music schools and other platforms often write: "The tariffs correspond to the SMPV tariffs." So here too, the tariffs influence the teachers' salaries. It is imperative that we campaign for reasonable tariffs that generate a living wage for private teachers!

Dear music teachers in Switzerland
Dear colleagues

Being a music teacher in this day and age is a challenging endeavor! Pupils have less and less time, so it's tempting for them to simply take some virtual lessons at an online music school. Maximum flexibility is promised here, and fun is apparently guaranteed. You can even buy a 10-session subscription without any obligation and don't have to commit to anything. The setting corresponds exactly to our zeitgeist: achieving the fastest possible result with a small investment of time and personal commitment - fun factor included. Qualified music teachers are well aware that serious music lessons are hardly possible in this way.

Many laypeople do not realize that this is precisely the invaluable benefit of music lessons, that students have to commit to lessons over a longer period of time, that they have to practice for hundreds of hours to be able to play a relatively simple piece beautifully and musically, but that this genuine ability then leads to deep enjoyment and improved self-confidence. Nor can they imagine that it takes years of intensive study of the instrument to become a professional musician. So much effort is considered totally unfashionable in this day and age.
Music lessons create a counterbalance to the hectic pace of these fast-moving times, in which everyone demands quick results and the number of mental illnesses is growing exponentially because there is no time for other people. Music lessons are not just about learning a craft, they are balm for the soul because people are allowed to pause and engage with this project. The pupils travel to the teacher, because in-depth learning is only possible in real-life confrontation with a qualified specialist; we have known this since the coronavirus pandemic at the latest. And although terms such as "pause", "come to yourself" and "be in the moment" are often used in the context of music lessons, it is not a therapy in which you can simply let your mind wander. Learning to play an instrument is a complex process that requires full attention, in which all the senses must be involved and the mind focused on the activity. It challenges the person in their entirety with all their thoughts, feelings and body. This is the only way learning can take place. And it makes no difference whether we are preparing students for a diploma or working with a mentally handicapped child.

And precisely because music lessons are so anti-cyclical, their value is often not recognized. Music teachers, unlike musicians, are very often not perceived as important. Music lessons become a non-committal hobby, and it is forgotten that even the big stars once enjoyed such music lessons, but that at some point they said yes and fully committed to their instrument with their teacher.

Be proud of your profession! No matter how difficult it sometimes seems in these hectic times, when everything has to be achieved immediately, but at no cost. Physical music lessons will always exist, they are irreplaceable! We are a counterweight that helps to keep humanity in balance, to keep it healthy. In music lessons, the moment is still a valuable commodity, "commitment" and "being able to get involved" are necessary qualities, and qualified teachers are particularly important. In this way, we make an important contribution to our society!

With this in mind, we wish you a successful new year - don't be discouraged! Move forward with confidence! The SMPV will continue to stand by your side this year and do everything in its power to ensure that music education at all levels is given the status it deserves!

Annette Dannecker and Paola De Luca
Co-Presidents SMPV

SMPV members produce culture every day - in concerts and short performances, with their students at their auditions and in ensemble music-making and cultural participation projects. Many performances take place on a small scale and do not receive the attention they deserve.

That is why the SMPV is organizing a Tour de Suisse Musical from Whit Saturday, 7 to 28 June. In addition to the usual small and large performances, as many events as possible are to be organized in unusual places with cooperation partners, e.g. from local businesses. We are thinking, for example, of a flute duet by two schoolgirls in a bakery in Wengen on a Monday morning. The bakery sells an "SMPV bread" during the three weeks and gives SMPV information material to its customers. A short video recording of the performance is linked to the Tour de Suisse musical map. In the video description and in the tour program there is space to mention the cooperation partners.
Of course, all Whitsun concerts by SMPV members will also be included on the map if links to video clips are provided. Already planned is an open-air ad-hoc choir event by the SMPV Bern in Bern at the end of the tour on June 28, the Palmarès of the prizewinners of the Vaud section exams on June 17, three concerts on June 14, the "Dreiklang" in Winterthur and Elvirissima 2025 on June 9 in Lucerne will also take place as part of the tour.

You could play music on a ship, in a department store, at a vantage point with a correspondingly unusual audience and a particularly beautiful cinematic background. A short crawling concert could take place outside on a playground. Good, even slightly crazy ideas are needed! SMPV members (or sections) can register their performances and those of their students at: smpv.ch/anmeldeformuar-formulaire-dinscription-modulo-di-registrazione-tour-de-suisse-musical .

I am supported by Guy Fasel (Vaud), Akiko Hasegawa (Aargau), Florian Mall (Northwestern Switzerland) and Josira Salles (Biel/Jura) in the OC, which is responsible for coordinating the events for the main route of the tour.

Anyone who is also interested in joining the OC is welcome to get in touch.

We are looking forward to a colorful, sonorous and somewhat crazy tour and to getting to know many members from a new perspective along the way.

For Elvira Lüthi-Wegmann, a singer, singing teacher and patron of the arts from Schaffhausen, the training and promotion of her singing students was a matter close to her heart, and she was closely associated with the Swiss Music Pedagogical Association SMPV throughout her life. She therefore bequeathed a large sum to the SMPV with the proviso that it be used to set up a foundation to support the most talented Swiss students of SMPV members. To identify these, the foundation board will once again organize the "Elvirissima" singing competition in 2025.

On Whit Monday, June 9, 2025, a maximum of 20 finalists will be able to present themselves to the jury in the singing competition for the following prizes:

1st prize: CHF 9'600.-
2nd prize: CHF 4'800.-
3rd prize: CHF 2'000.
4th prize: CHF 1'000.

The Board of Trustees selects the finalists after carefully reviewing the submitted dossiers. These must each contain two video recordings of the candidates. As a special feature, the second piece must be sung a cappella. This is a remnant from the pandemic period, when a "home office video" was one of the requirements for the online-only competition in 2020. At the time, the Board of Trustees determined that it was even easier to hear who was particularly musical in the unaccompanied pieces.
Swiss vocal students whose singing teacher is a member of the Swiss Music Pedagogical Association SMPV, qualified Swiss singers who are themselves full members of the SMPV and foreigners who have been resident in Switzerland for at least two years can apply and are studying singing with a member of the SMPV for at least the fourth semester or have been a full member of the SMPV for at least one year. The age limit is 30 years.
The jury consists of the Board of Trustees and two external experts. For 2025, we were able to recruit Dr. Ursula Benzing, Opera Director at Lucerne Theatre, and Mr. Thomas Barthel, Deputy Director of the International Opera Studio, Zurich Opera House, for the jury.

We look forward to once again discovering beautiful voices, highly musical voice owners and interesting young artistic personalities, and we invite you to travel to Lucerne on June 9, 2025 to watch the public audition live from 10:30 a.m. and cheer along with the young singers when the winners are announced from 4:30 p.m. onwards.

The competition rules, the link to the registration form and information for the public can be found at www.elvirissima.ch

The Board of Trustees of the Elvira-Lüthi-Wegmann Foundation: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hunziker, Dr. Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer and President of the Board of Trustees, Marianne Wälchli

Question from an SMPV member: What do I have to consider legally when using artificial intelligence (AI) in music lessons?

Answer from Dr. Kovacs:
The use of AI in music lessons is becoming increasingly popular. For this very reason, a certain carelessness has arisen in the handling of works and data, which is not appropriate from a legal perspective. In principle, the general legal rules that apply offline also apply to the use of AI tools.
apply. The Internet is not a legal vacuum. The following presentation of some "legal minefields" is intended to help you recognize them and deal with them correctly. It is not exhaustive, so that the respective problems must be examined for each individual use.

A The following should be noted for the input (feeding the AI with data): In principle, all owners of rights to the data entered (e.g. images, texts, pieces of music) must be asked for their consent (license). Without this, use is generally not permitted.

1. There are exceptions to this in copyright law:

• Teachers may use copyright-protected works in the classroom as long as this is necessary for the purpose of teaching and the use is not commercial. However, they are
• subject to remuneration.
• Short excerpts from protected works may be quoted as long as the source is cited and the work is used to illustrate the teaching topic.
• The making of copies for teaching purposes is permitted if they are intended for the personal use of the students and do not go beyond what is necessary.
• However, it may still be necessary to obtain the author's consent (i.e. a license) if the work is used on a large scale or for events outside the classroom.
• Many schools have agreements with authors or collecting societies (e.g. SUISA) that they pay a flat-rate license fee to cover the use of music or texts in class.

2. data and privacy protection:
Many AI applications collect and process users' personal data. This is not permitted without their consent if it goes beyond the generally known data. In particular, the use of personal images always requires consent, as does the use and compilation of cell phone numbers and email addresses. Schools and teachers must ensure that they meet the legal requirements. In particular, they must inform the authorized persons in advance of the purpose of the data use and obtain their consent. The teacher must be able to prove this. The teacher must also take suitable measures to protect the data and be able to provide evidence of this.

B The following should be noted for the output (the work result of the AI tool):

AI-supported tools can generate or analyze pieces of music, write and correct texts and much more. However, they can also use pieces of music or texts from the internet to edit them and thus generate new pieces or texts. It is still unclear who owns the rights to these new works: the developers of the AI programs, the users or the AI itself? It is clear that the AI itself cannot be the author of a work, especially as only natural persons can be.

Liability and conclusion:
If an AI tool or the user does not observe the legal restrictions or even provides incorrect information in class, all parties responsible, e.g. the developer of the AI, the school and the teacher, are jointly and severally liable, i.e. they are jointly and severally liable in full for any damage. This can be expensive. It is therefore important that teachers inform themselves about the specific regulations and seek legal advice in case of uncertainty.

The annual forum is organized by the SMPV Zurich Sections and Winterthur/Zurich Oberland and the MuV.vpod.
It offers interested music teachers from the Canton of Zurich the opportunity to exchange information about working conditions at Zurich music schools and to obtain important first-hand information.
And with board members from two SMPV sections and a VPOD representative in attendance, the annual forum is an excellent opportunity to make suggestions for improving the situation of music teachers in the Canton of Zurich and to discuss with the associations how these improvements could be achieved.

Among other things, it was discussed that music teachers often do not know whether they are employed at a private or public music school. It was once again emphasized that music schools that are part of a (public) elementary school are generally more advantageous for teachers. In particular, additional offers such as class music-making (the city of Zurich finances class music-making for 120 classes), music camps, choir, etc. are not necessarily supported by an association, but there is a budget for this in the public music schools.
Those present found it disturbing that music is often neglected as a subject in elementary school. This may be due to the fact that only a third of PH students choose music as a subject and therefore two thirds of primary school teachers do not have a teaching qualification for music. Since only three subject teachers should actually be assigned to a class and other subjects than music are considered more important, there is no music teacher for some classes.

The problem was also raised that the EDK only recognizes the diplomas issued by the ZHdK for primary music schools for kindergarten and 1st and 2nd grade. However, MAG students are trained to teach up to Year 6. Many leave their jobs disappointed after a few years.

Those present found it grotesque that music teachers seek the support of a trade union when faced with labor law problems, but are not prepared to join a professional association. They are particularly poorly informed about the SMPV, and there is a misconception that it is only an association for freelancers. It is important to keep informing people that the SMPV is a professional association for all music teachers!

Further information at fzhm.ch