The International Citation of Merit Award is presented to personalities who "have a decisive influence on the world of the performing arts in the background", writes Lucerne Festival. It honors a lifetime achievement that has enriched the international cultural landscape through excellent work. The prize is regarded as one of the most important awards in the field of international cultural work.

The International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) is a global network of leaders in the performing arts. It was founded in the USA in 1949 and today unites over 500 members from more than 50 countries. Its aim is to promote global exchange, networking and the further development of the cultural scene. The ISPA sees itself as a platform for dialog, innovation and international cooperation.

Coin was born in Caen and studied viola da gamba with Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis from 1978. Coin has been a teacher of baroque cello and viola da gamba at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis since 1988.

The École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot" (ENMP) is a music academy in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. It was founded in 1919 by Auguste Mangeot and Alfred Cortot. It is recognized by the Ministry of Culture and is under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mainz University of Applied Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University and the publishing house Schott Music have initiated the cooperative doctoral project DigiMuBi (Digital Learning Formats in Music Education from the Perspective of Media Education, Computer Science Didactics and Media Management). The aim is to research the possibilities of digital learning formats in music education. Janna ten Thoren from Mainz University of Applied Sciences is responsible for the research work. Sven Pagel from Mainz University of Applied Sciences and Jasmin Bastian from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz are assisting and advising her.

In addition to researching digital learning media, the three-year project also focuses on analyzing economic and social aspects. The focus is on understanding the integration of digital tools in various educational environments and analyzing their acceptance and impact. To this end, various learning settings (e.g. group situations or self-learning) are analyzed and digital teaching formats, such as interactive apps, are tested.

A particular focus is on investigating the needs, prerequisites and acceptance of digital methods in music schools and general education schools. The aim is to identify the most effective technological and pedagogical approaches to promote music appreciation and practice.

Born in Bucharest (Romania) in 1984, Irina Ungureanu studied classical singing at the Zurich University of the Arts with Jane and David Thorner-Mengedoth. After exploring contemporary music and taking part in a number of staged and musical premieres, she currently devotes herself largely to her own songs in Swiss German and Romanian. From 2011 to 2015, she taught solo singing at the Pädagogische Maturitätsschule Kreuzlingen. For four years, she was a member of the board of trustees of the Thurgau Cultural Foundation and the Music Commission of the City of Zurich.

The grants from the Canton of Thurgau are intended to enable artistic development. In addition to Irina, the expert jury selected the following five Thurgau artists from 65 applications: Reto Friedmann (radio art), Linda Heller (dance), Rhona Mühlebach (visual art), Barbara Tacchini (theater), Mikhail Joey Wassmer (visual art).

The Bernese ensemble was joined by actor Evans-Jones for the speaking roles in the film and made a remarkable appearance during the sinking of the Titanic when it played the Bach chorale "Nearer my God to thee". The violin that Evans-Jones played is now being auctioned off.

The violin was auctioned by Evans-Jones in 2013 and has been in the possession of the then buyer since its purchase. The auction will take place on April 26 and will be conducted by the auction house Henry Aldridge and Son in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. The violin will be delivered with a signed certificate of authenticity.

To find out whether genetic factors influence music enjoyment or the perception of reward from music, the team used a research design comparing the similarity between identical and fraternal twins: If identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins, genetics probably plays a role.

In collaboration with the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the team was able to use data from more than 9,000 twins, including information on the perception of reward through music and the ability to perceive musical characteristics such as pitch, melody and rhythm.

The results show that the ability to enjoy music is partly inherited: Using the twin design, the team was able to determine that 54 percent of the differences in the Swedish sample were genetic. They also found that the genetic influences on the musical sense of reward are partly independent of musical perception skills and the general (non-musical) sense of reward.

More info: 
https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/newsroom/news/news-artikel/article/ist-musikgenuss-in-den-genen-verankert.html

Founded in 1988, the Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra represents the Principality of Liechtenstein as a cultural location through guest performances and concert tours - in 2025 at the Vienna Konzerthaus and in 2026 at the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival. It has worked with conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Lawrence Foster, Kevin John Edusei and John Axelrod. In collaboration with the Liechtenstein Academy of Music, it regularly promotes young talent.

Born in Poland, 33-year-old Dawid Runtz was Principal Conductor at the Royal Opera in Poland from 2017 to 2025 and has been Chief Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra since 2021.

The Cultural Commission of the City of Bern was created in 2024 from the previous divisional commissions. It currently consists of up to 45 people and is diverse in terms of expertise, experience and perspectives. The municipal council has now amended the regulatory basis so that the Culture Commission can now comprise up to 50 people.

Barbara Boss, Antonia Brix, Sandra Forrer, Tanina Jenk, Johanna Pärli, Tiziana Simpson and Joel Zumbrunnen were newly elected to the Culture Commission. One member was no longer elected because, according to the city's press release, he "attracted attention through hate speech on social media".

The following people represent music on the City of Bern's Culture Commission: Avital Cohen (flutist, sound and performance artist, educator), Maxi Ehrenzeller (painter, writer, musician), Marcel Kägi (musician and producer), Hannes Liechti (musicologist), Gwendolyn Masin (violinist, musicologist, curator and lecturer), Johanna Pärli (musician, music educator), Estelle Plüss (musician, author), Hassan Taha (musician, lecturer and composer), This Wachter (audio producer), Florence Weber (musicologist, cultural manager) and David Zürcher (musician, filmmaker).

Marguerite Wassermann studied baroque violin in London and Basel. She is a prizewinner of the Italian early music competitions Premio Bonporti (2023) and Marco Uccellini (2022). In addition to her collaboration with various early music ensembles, she regularly performs with the orchestra Le Concert des Nations and can be heard as a soloist on their recordings of Vivaldi concertos. In April, Wassermann and her ensemble The Levée will release a CD with newly discovered violin sonatas by the French theorist and music theorist Etienne Denis Delair (1662-1750).

The International Telemann Competition, which was launched in 2001, was held in two categories for the first time in its history in 2025. 31 musicians took part in the historical string instruments category. 11 international ensembles, formed by 46 musicians, competed in Magdeburg in the chamber music ensembles category, with the first round being held in video mode before the start of the competition.

According to Caiti Hauck, postdoctoral researcher and head of studies at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Bern, the publications show that the history of Swiss choirs not only reveals aspects of musical life. Historical research on choral life in Switzerland also sheds light on socially relevant topics such as political and social life, the role of women and even the establishment of a national unity around the founding of the Swiss federal state.

Hauck's project "CLEFNI - Choral life in the cities of Bern and Fribourg in the long 19th century" was funded from 2019 to 2023 by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).

Julien Cachemaille, the author of the comic, has already made a name for himself with the science comic La course de pirogues He gained experience in this form of knowledge transfer via pile dwellers in the Late Bronze Age. He sees it as an innovative and increasingly popular format of communication. According to Cachemaille, the use of images makes the text more compact and the information can be conveyed more simply and easily.

The links:

Swiss choral life since 1800: music, practice and contexts:
https://books.unibe.ch/index.php/BB/catalog/book/13

Three Swiss choral singers in the 19th century
https://clefni.unibe.ch/index.php/de/2025/03/05/comic-buch

Universal patterns such as the acquisition of basic rhythm and pitch recognition play an important role in musical development in childhood. However, there are also very individual patterns that are based on environmental, educational and innate factors. In order to document these precisely and thus close a gap in research, the research team at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) has developed the "Child Musicality Screening" as part of a total of three studies.

This method can be used, for example, to recognize developmental trajectories, identify musically gifted children at an earlier stage and specifically promote musical education. The questionnaire was recently published with the study results in the journal PLOS One, where it is available as a free download.

Original publication: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0317962

Over the past year and a half, the Cultural Promotion Commission and the Cultural Office have worked together with Aarau's cultural practitioners to scrutinize existing cultural promotion practices. The focus was on clarifying the questions of what is already working well and where the principles need to be adapted.

Digital projects are now explicitly included in the funding. Experimental, daring projects are also welcome and will be able to obtain advice on feasibility from the cultural office in future. Communication is to be improved: cultural professionals should be able to obtain information more quickly and easily, for example about assistance with the implementation of cultural projects or about alternative funding bodies.

Funding is open to all age groups and will be generally strengthened in terms of communication: in addition to the guidelines in easy/simple language, there will now also be FAQs that answer important questions about funding. As before, only projects that are accessible to the people of Aarau and have a connection to Aarau in terms of content and/or personnel will be supported.

In the documentary "Vracht", the young sailor Rudmer works on a container ship and dreams of becoming a captain himself one day. According to the jury, the interplay between the visual and acoustic levels in the film is perfect. It is an immersive film for the eyes and ears, in which the individual artistic voices of direction, camera, editing and music have become a harmony.

Mirjam Skal, born in 1996, is a freelance media composer from Zurich. She studied composition for film, theater and media at the Zurich University of the Arts and has composed numerous soundtracks for short films, games, commercials and documentaries, for radio and television. In 2021 she was part of the Berlinale Talents. She has been honored with the Zollinger Art Prize, the Rolf-Hans Müller Prize for Best Film Music at the Televisionale Baden-Baden and other awards.

Since 2019, the German Documentary Film Music Prize has been awarded as part of DOK.fest Munich, the largest documentary film festival in Germany. It is sponsored by Versicherungskammer Kultur, is endowed with 5000 euros and is supported by the German Composers' Association.

Alicia Suárez Medina was born in Spain in 1997 and studied at the Conservatorio Superior de Música "Manuel Castillo" in Seville and at the Conservatorio Superior de Castilla y León before joining the Bern University of the Arts. She currently combines her artistic activities with her teaching work in Switzerland. She has been a piano teacher and accompanist at the Oberemmental Music School since 2023 and regularly performs at concerts and festivals in Switzerland, Spain, Germany and France.

The Kiwanis Music Prize is awarded every three years to graduates of the HKB's Master of Arts in Music Pedagogy program who are above average in both artistic and pedagogical terms. Great importance is attached to an exceptionally high level of pedagogical competence in passing on the skills acquired.

The first prize includes prize money of 1500 euros and a production budget of 5000 euros. Echo Theory are the HKB students Erin Torres (Master Specialized Music Performance, specialization Music in Context), Béatrice Garrido (Bachelor Classical Music) and Julian Schletti (Bachelor Sound Arts).

The second prize of 600 euros went to Duo Zwischen from the Stuttgart and Leipzig music academies, the third prize of 200 euros to soloist Tibor Kovács from the Mozarteum Salzburg and the fourth prize of 200 euros to the On5 Quintett from the Nuremberg University of Music.

This year's competition jury consisted of Sonja Stibi, Professor of Music Education at the Munich University of Music, Anja Christina Loosli, Artistic Co-Director of the Schlosskonzerte Thun, and Bernhard Günther, Artistic Director of Wien Modern. The audience was also able to vote online.

Named after the minstrel Hugo von Montfort, the Montforter Zwischentöne international student competition for new concert formats provides a motto and a location each year that the participants have to address in their concepts.