Choral singing has a long tradition in Appenzell Ausserrhoden and encourages a broad public to engage in cultural activities, writes the canton. Individual professional musicians such as Jürg Surber, the long-standing conductor of the Chorwald, are often able to motivate choirs with their enthusiasm and expertise. This year's cantonal recognition award is therefore also representative of the great commitment shown by other choirs in the canton.

Formed in 1983 as the "Gemischter Chor Wald AR" from a merger between the men's choir founded in 1879 and the women's and daughters' choir founded in 1904, the Chorwald is now a regional choir with over 60 active members from all the surrounding villages. With its specially designed concert programs and national and international appearances, the choir has made a name for itself far beyond the Appenzell region. It has won awards at various competitions and singing festivals.

Despite changing line-ups, the choir has developed a broad foundation on which a high level of stylistic diversity is possible: this is reflected in many performances, from village serenades with traditional folk songs from different cultures to church service performances and concert performances of great classical oratorios. According to the canton, the 2024 Recognition Award recognizes the choir "both for the important contribution that the singers make to cultural life in the canton with their voluntary commitment, as well as for its meticulous sound culture and innovative concert programmes".

The 2024 Culture Prize goes to choreographer and dancer Gisa Frank.

Carol Schuler was born in Winterthur in 1987. At the age of 14, she played the lead role in the film "Lieber Brad", for which she received the Swiss Film Award for Best Actress in 2002. After finishing school in Winterthur, Carol Schuler went to Berlin and began training as an actress at the European Theater Institute. This was followed by another nomination for the Swiss Film Award in 2012 and engagements at the Schauspielhaus Zürich and the Schaubühne Berlin, where she has been a permanent member of the ensemble since the 2017/18 season. Carol Schuler also performs on stage as a singer with her bands "El Cartel" and "Chloé et les Enfants Terribles". She is known to the general public as investigator Tessa Ott in Zurich's "Tatort".

The Cultural Prize of the City of Winterthur is awarded annually by the City Council to individuals or institutions who have made a special contribution to the cultural life of the City of Winterthur. The City Council nominates the award winners on its own authority. An application is not possible. Institutions as well as individuals and groups can be honored. The prize is endowed with CHF 10,000.

Leo McFall has been Chief Conductor of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra since the 2020/21 season. Last season, he conducted four concerts with the SOV in Feldkirch and Bregenz, as well as the Bregenz Festival Opera Studio for the first time. McFall is also Principal Conductor of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra and is closely associated with the Alma Mahler Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble of members of top European orchestras. Since this season, he has been General Music Director of the Wiesbaden State Theater.

The Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1984 by a group of musicians and music enthusiasts from the region between the Arlberg and the Rhine. Its members are 120 professional musicians from Vorarlberg and the neighboring regions. Each season, it performs a cycle of six concerts in Bregenz and Feldkirch, plus a major opera production at the Vorarlberg State Theatre, concerts and scenic projects at the international Bregenz Festival in summer, at the Montforter Zwischentöne festival, other guest performances and CD productions.

Singapore-born Kate Liu completed her training with Robert McDonald and Yoheved Kaplinsky at the Juilliard School in New York, among others. She won a bronze medal and the audience prize at the 2015 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. With the Gstaad award, Kate Liu follows Pallavi Mahidhara (prizewinner 2022) and Alexandra Dovgan (prizewinner 2023).

The prize, established by Olivier Berggruen, includes a concert as part of the festival program and a trophy designed by Mai-Thu Perret, a Geneva-born artist with French-Vietnamese roots. The German-American art historian, curator and writer Berggruen comes from a family of patrons and is artistic advisor to the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.

Steve Davislim began his musical training as a horn player and later studied singing with Dame Joan Hammond, Gösta Winbergh and Neil Shicoff as well as in Irwin Gage's lied class and at the International Opera Studio Zurich.

From 1994 to 2000, he sang roles such as Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Steuermann (Der fliegende Holländer), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Ferrando (Cosi fan tutti), Camille (Die lustige Witwe) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) as well as the Prince in Heinz Holliger's "Schneewittchen" at the Zurich Opera House.

Over the past two weeks, ten conductors have had the opportunity to work with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra as part of the Gstaad Conducting Academy. Under the direction of Jaap van Zweden, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic and Johannes Schlaefli, Professor of Conducting at the Zurich University of the Arts, they led numerous rehearsals and concerts.

At the final concert, three of them were awarded the Neeme Järvi Prize: The Israeli conductor Omer Ein Zvi will conduct the Bern Symphony Orchestra as a guest conductor in the coming season. Thanks to her win, Alizé Léhon will be invited to conduct the Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Basel Symphony Orchestra. The Swiss conductor Gabriel Pernet wins guest conducting engagements with the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.

The jury was made up of the chairman Christoph Müller (Artistic Director Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy), the professors of the Gstaad Conducting Academy Jaap van Zweden and Johannes Schlaefli, as well as members of the partner orchestras and the Gstaad Festival Orchestra.

Raphael Sbrzesny was born in 1985 and lives and works in Berlin. He studied contemporary music, classical percussion and chamber music in Stuttgart and Paris, experimental music theater and composition in Bern as well as visual arts and theory in Stuttgart and Munich.

Sbrzesny develops installations in which portable sculptures are activated as musical instruments in performances and combined with costumes, texts, videos and photographs. In his artistic practice, he is interested in the body as an instrument and setting for a subjective historiography. According to the university, the idea of the emancipated interpreter is central to him, who structures his own works using figures such as the Eumel, King, Son, Doctor, Sophie or Principal Boy and repeatedly performs them anew.

According to the press release, the MA Music and Scene in Transformation (MuST) "completely rethinks teaching and learning in the field of music and performance": MuST places "creation and collaboration at the center of education and breaks down disciplinary and genre boundaries with its unique anchoring in the performance practice of early music (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis) as well as contemporary music (sonic space basel)".

Álvaro Rodríguez Cabezas studied in Getafe and at the Hochschule für Musik-Musik Akademie Basel under the direction of Marcus Weiss. He has taken part in important national and international festivals, including the Classic Winds in Hamburg and the Facyl Festival in Salamanca. He is a member of the A-Delta Trio and the ensemble Prochain Arrêt, with whom he recently recorded an album of music by Mozart.

The Marianne and Curt Dienemann Foundation organizes the annual Dienemann Music Competition. It is open to the public - including Swiss music academies - and focuses on one instrument or group of instruments. The audition or audition in front of the jury takes place in Lucerne. Awards - work years and sponsorship prizes - up to a maximum of CHF 10,000 per person are presented.

Born in Switzerland in 1997, Elmar Hauser switched from tenor to countertenor during his preliminary studies at the Winterthur Conservatory with David Thorner and Jane Thorner-Mengedoht. In 2021, he completed his Bachelor's degree in singing at the Zurich University of the Arts in Werner Güra's class with distinction. This was followed by a master's degree in music theater/opera singing at the Theaterakademie August Everding in the singing class of Christiane Iven.

Launched in 2015, the Concorso Lirico Internazionale di Portofino (CLIP) is a project organized by the Associazione Musicale Giovanni Bottesini. The jury president is Dominique Meyer, the other jury members are representatives of major opera houses. The first prize is endowed with 10,000 euros.

The concept takes into account social, demographic, economic and technological developments, writes the canton. It was developed by the Office of Culture with the involvement of cultural organizations in Graubünden and the Culture Commission from spring 2023 to early summer 2024.

The evaluation and the participatory process had shown that the funding priorities of the first cultural promotion concept had proved their worth and should essentially be retained. Only a few additions and clarifications were made.

The contribution to singing and music schools is set at CHF 2,900,000, and the cultural promotion department is also developing a cantonal talent promotion program. The federal government is contributing financially to the implementation as part of its "Young Talents in Music" program.

More info: https://www.gr.ch/DE/Medien/Mitteilungen/MMStaka/2024/Seiten/2024080701.aspx

The Trio Chagall was founded in 2013 at the "G. Verdi" Conservatory in Turin by Lorenzo Nguyen, Edoardo Grieco and Francesco Massimino. The three now study with Rainer Schmidt and Anton Kernjak at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel. In 2023, the trio won first prize at the Schoenfeld International String Competition in Harbin, China, and was the winner of the 2023 Young Concert Artists Trust international auditions at Wigmore Hall.

At the beginning of this year, Trio Chagall was named an Echo Rising Star. This is linked to a tour of the major concert halls in Europe in the 2024/25 season.

Yves Paternot was the founder of the Friends of the Verbier Festival and a member of the Foundation Board. The prize named after him is endowed with CHF 10,000 and also includes an invitation to perform at a future Verbier Festival as well as support of up to CHF 15,000 for artistic and professional development.

Born in East Tyrol, Gerald Mair studied double bass and music education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, specializing in ensemble conducting. He also completed a two-year course in cultural management. He honed his musical skills with the conductor Manfred Huss and the double bassists Hermann Eisterer (Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Concentus Musicus Vienna) and Werner Fleischmann (Vienna Symphony Orchestra).

Founded in 1984, the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra sets the tone in Vorarlberg with six to seven subscription concerts a year in Bregenz and Feldkirch. The Bregenz Festival is an important cooperation partner of the SOV.

Nicole Christine Wacker studied in the class of Christian Hilz and Mara Maria Möritz with Tanja Ariane Baumgartner. The two will each receive prize money of 7,000 Swiss francs. The Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance is the highest level of classical music education in Switzerland. The Eduard Tschumi Prize is awarded for the best overall score in the Master's examination.

The soprano Nicole Christine Wacker attended the renowned Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan in the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons. In 2022 she made her debut at the Donizetti Opera Festival and the Bregenz Festival. Her most recent appearances were in the OperaLombardia Tournée and at the Teatro Verdi Trieste.

Mara Maria Möritz sings, performs, directs and writes. During her international career in concert and music theater, the young soprano has been a guest at the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna Festival and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, among others. She has also won the International Master Orchestra Competition in Brescia (Italy), the D-Bü Competition for New Concert Formats and the International HUGO Prize for Concert Dramaturgy.

Lara Morger studied at the Bern University of the Arts with Tanja Baumgartner, among others. She is a prizewinner of the Telemann Competition Magdeburg and the Salvat Bach Grant of the Bachcelona Foundation. As a soloist, she has worked with conductors such as Jordi Savall, Ton Koopman and Christoph Prégardien and has sung with ensembles such as Hespèrion XXI and lautten compagney Berlin. She has been a member of the Capella Reial de Catalunya since 2021. She last appeared on the opera stage in 2022 in the title role of Handel's Alessandro at the ETA Hoffmann Theater Bamberg under the direction of Gottfried von der Goltz.

As part of the 24th International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, 108 musicians from 19 countries competed for the title of Bach Prize winner in the fields of organ, voice and cello/baroque cello. Of these, 18 young musicians from eight countries made it to the final on July 26, including eight participants from Germany, three from the USA and two from Spain.

Born in Karlsruhe in 1952, he studied with Eugen Werner Velte at the Karlsruhe University of Music from 1968 to 1972. Here he intensively studied the music of Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern. At the same time as his Abitur, he also completed his studies in composition and music theory here. Further studies led him to Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne. He studied composition and musicology at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg. This was followed by his own lecturing activities in Karlsruhe, at the Munich University of Music and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, which he regularly attended. In 1985, Rihm took over the professorship for composition at the Karlsruhe University of Music.

The general public was Wolfgang Rihm with the performance of his orchestral work Morphony - Sector IV at the Donaueschingen Music Festival in 1974. He achieved another milestone with the chamber opera Jakob Lenz 1977, which was to mark the beginning of his collaboration with Universal Edition.

Wolfgang Rihm's most important works include the operas The Conquest of Mexico, The Hamlet Machine, Dionysus, Jakob Lenz, Proserpina and The enclosure. In the area of orchestral repertoire, the most important are Transformation 1-6, Near Distance 1-4, Transitus IIIhis Second Piano Concerto and the works Serious singing, sung time or Light play to name a few. Among many other works he wrote for smaller ensembles Hunts and Forms, Séraphin Sphere, Scraps or Mnemosyne.

In addition to his musical oeuvre, which includes over 400 works, Rihm was known for his commitment to cultural policy. He was a member of the executive committee of the German Composers' Association and the German Music Council, a member of the board of trustees of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation and a member of the GEMA supervisory board. From 1984 to 1989, he was also co-editor of the music magazine Melos and acted as musical advisor for the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers in Europe. Bhis last position was as Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy in the planning of the Lucerne Festival. The Berliner Philharmoniker will dedicate a composer-in-residency to Rihm and his works in the upcoming 2024/25 season.