The BKA association receives annual funding of CHF 75,000 for the operation and maintenance of a comprehensive, digital cultural events calendar. The aim is to provide the population of Bern with "a low-threshold and free overview of the city and regional cultural offerings", writes the City of Bern.

The Verein Berner Kulturagenda (BKA) is an association of around 250 cultural institutions in Bern. The association is financed by membership fees, contributions from municipalities and the canton. With the dissolution of the municipal association Anzeiger Region Bern at the end of 2023, the BKA lost its sponsoring medium. The association has therefore reoriented itself and developed a new online agenda. Editorial contributions and the publication of the BKA in printed form are financed by member contributions.

83-year-old Christoph Eschenbach was born in Wrocław, Poland, the home town of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic. He will take over the post from the 2024/2025 season as the successor to Giancarlo Guerrero, who has held the post since the 2017/2018 season. Eschenbach conducted the Konzerthausorchester Berlin until 2023.

The Wrocław National Forum for Music (NFM) is a concert hall with four halls founded in 2015 to mark Wrocław's nomination as European Capital of Culture. The largest can seat up to 1800 people. The Forum also includes the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, founded in 1945. It was named after Witold Lutosławski in 1994 and renamed the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in 2015 with the inauguration of its new headquarters.

According to Bachtrack, one remarkable result of the last ten years is the steady increase in contemporary music programming. Its share has risen from around 6 to 14 percent worldwide. The trend is reflected in many countries: in the United Kingdom from 6 to 15 percent and in the USA from 7.5 to 20 percent. In some countries, such as Japan, Austria and France, there are comparatively fewer performances of contemporary music, but an increase can also be observed in these countries.

The rise in performances of contemporary music goes hand in hand with an increase in performances of music by female composers - and especially by living women. Sofia Gubaidulina, Caroline Shaw, Unsuk Chin and Anna Clyne are all among the 100 most-performed in 2023. Also in the top 100 are Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn and Lili Boulanger. In 2023, 22 of the 200 most performed composers are women - in 2013 there were only 2.

Bachtrack was founded in 2008. The site lists around 30,000 concerts, opera and dance events every year and also publishes around 150 concert reviews per month. The site is published in English, French, German and Spanish.

In 2023, Bachtrack recorded 31,309 different events (around 4,000 more than in the previous year). This includes more than 16,000 concerts, 9,000 opera performances and almost 6,000 dance events. This year, it was also possible to evaluate the data from the last ten years, i.e. since 2013. This allows statistically significant conclusions to be drawn about the world of classical music and the changes it is undergoing.

More info: https://bachtrack.com/de_DE/classical-music-statistics-2023

The city parliament is responsible for approving the subsidies for eleven of the 23 contracts. By increasing contributions by a total of one million francs per year, "the city council is reaffirming its intention to support the cultural institutions in continuing to provide a professional service for the benefit of Winterthur as a city of culture", writes the city administration.

The city of Winterthur currently supports twenty cultural institutions whose subsidy contracts expire at the end of December 2024. The city council wants to conclude new contracts for the next performance period from 2025. To this end, it has reassessed the contractual relationships. Current, socially relevant topics such as the consideration of fair fees and wages or the observance of ecological and social sustainability were also taken into account, the city writes further.

The city has planned twenty contracts with institutions that already have a subsidy agreement. It now intends to support three further cultural institutions. These are the Tanzfest Winterthur association, Theater Ariane and Lauschig, an association for cultural mediation. With their cultural programmes, professional organization and as employers, they meet the cultural policy and operational requirements to receive multi-year support.

Subsidies within the competence of the city parliament include the Winterthur Music Festival Association and the Music Association of the City of Winterthur. Contracts with the Afro-Pfingsten association and the Esse Winterthur jazz association are the responsibility of the city council.

More info:
https://stadt.winterthur.ch/gemeinde/verwaltung/stadtkanzlei/kommunikation-stadt-winterthur/medienmitteilungen-stadt-winterthur/befristete-subventionsvertraege-fuer-die-kultur

After more than thirty years on stage and a great international career, she has decided to retire from the stage. In future, she wants to devote herself entirely to her professorship for song, oratorio and concert at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts.

Sweeney Todd at Zurich Opera House is her farewell production. She talks about this and her signature role Octavian, her passion for song and her new, somewhat quieter life in Vienna in the Opera House podcast.

The mezzo-soprano began her musical training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and studied singing with Walter Berry and Gerhard Kahry at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from 1984. In 2007 she was appointed Kammersängerin of the Vienna State Opera, and in 2009 she was made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. She devotes particular attention to lieder and concert singing.

Link to the podcast:
https://www.opernhaus.ch/backstage/zwischenspiel-ein-podcast-aus-dem-opernhaus-zuerich/folge-62/

As part of a study, a team from the Potsdam Institute conducted interviews with 25 members of a German orchestra. It analyzed 13 interviews that appeared on the blog of the Orchestra of Change - an established sustainability initiative - and compared the statements with six examples of discourse, such as public declarations, position papers and project descriptions from institutions.

The team encountered pronounced forces of inertia: both musicians and institutions only showed interest in selected aspects of sustainable development and rarely criticized common practices in the industry. The researchers concluded that the historically established values of excellence and the preservation of a cultural heritage that is seen as immovable force the rules of the game to be maintained and hinder practical steps to slow down the concert business.

More info:
https://www.rifs-potsdam.de/de/news/werte-und-traditionen-des-klassischen-musikbetriebs-behindern-wandel-zur-nachhaltigkeit

Radulescu taught organ at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. He was also a freelance composer and juror at composition and organ competitions as well as a Bach interpreter and editor of early organ music. From 1971 to 1990 he directed the organ master classes of the Principality of Liechtenstein and from 1990 the International Bach Academy of Porrentruy (Switzerland). From 2002 to 2004, he was project manager for the interpretation, preparation and performance of Beethoven's symphonies on historical instruments.
In 2004 he completed the recording of the complete organ works of J.S. Bach on the organ of the Jesuit Church in Porrentruy.

As a composer, he was influenced by his early involvement with Hindemith and Webern as well as his exploration of the works of Schönberg, Boulez, Varèse, Ligeti, Bruckner, Messiaen and Orff.

Spronk studied with Thomas Grossenbacher at the Zurich University of the Arts from 2012 to 2017. Since 2017, he has been studying at the Berlin University of the Arts with Jens Peter Maintz. He is a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in the Principality of Liechtenstein and regularly takes part in intensive weeks and activities at the academy. In 2014, he won first prize with his clarinet trio at the Kiwanis Competition in Zurich. In 2019 he was a participant in the Verbier Festival Academy.

The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1929 as one of the first radio symphony orchestras in Germany. It has been conducted by Eliahu Inbal, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Hugh Wolff, Paavo Järvi and Andrés Orozco-Estrada, among others. The current chief conductor is Alain Altinoglu.

The team of the transdisciplinary research center "C:POP. Transdisciplinary Research Center for Popular Music Cultures and Creative Economies" of the Faculty of Cultural Studies at Paderborn University were commissioned with the scientific implementation of the study. This should ultimately provide insights into the structural, economic, ecological and social significance of music festivals - from classical music to electronic dance music and heavy metal. The study was launched in November and the project is expected to run until the end of August 2024.

Under the leadership of Beate Flath and Christoph Jacke, who both form the Executive Directorate of C:POP and are members of the Board of Directors, a multi-perspective, transdisciplinary team will conduct the empirical study. A mix of online surveys and interviews will be used to record key economic figures, the social and cultural dimensions of music festivals and their significance in terms of sustainability, diversity and inclusion.

More info:
https://kw.uni-paderborn.de/cpop/aktuelle-forschungsprojekte/bundesweite-festivalstudie

The project is led by Christof Weiss at the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (CAIDAS). In his role as Professor of Computer Science (Computational Humanities) at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU), he combines two apparently very different subject areas: Mathematics and computer science meet art and culture.

As part of its Emmy Noether Program, the German Research Foundation (DFG) is now funding his work with 1.4 million euros. This will enable him to set up a new research group on computer-based analysis of music recordings. The aim is to fundamentally develop automated analysis methods for music recordings, which could be used in musicology and the computational humanities in the future.

More info:
https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/single/news/von-noten-und-neuronalen-netzen/

First prize went to the Trio Basilea. It was awarded a commissioned composition (financed by Pro Helvetia), a cash prize and concerts at the Swiss Chamber Music Festival, Pianotriofest.ch, Zunftkonzerte Zürich, Festival Musikdorf Ernen and the Gesellschaft für Musik und Literatur Kreuzlingen. The trio consists of Laurentiu Stoian, violin (MA P with Adelina Oprean), Marina Correia Martins, cello (MA P with Danjulo Ishizaka) and Zofia Grzelak, piano (alumna, MA P with Martínez Mehner and Ronald Brautigam).

Second prize goes to the Zarathoustra Trio, which receives a commissioned composition, a cash prize and a concert performance at the Swiss Chamber Music Festival and Festival Musikdorf Ernen. Its members are Thomas Briant (violin), Eliott Leridon (cello) and Théotime Gillot (piano, MA P with Claudio Martínez Mehner).

Third prize goes to the Trio Archai, which receives a commissioned composition, a cash prize and a concert at the Swiss Chamber Music Festival 2024. It consists of Ayla Şahin (violin, MA P with Rainer Schmidt and Alina Pogostkina), Finn Mannion (violoncello, BA instrumental with Danjulo Ishizaka) and others

The jury consisted of Heinz Holliger (chair), Benjamin Engeli, Chiara Enderle Samatanga, Sarah Rumer, Daniel Schädeli and Lisa Schatzman.

In 2022, consumption amounted to 20.1 hours, in 2023 to 20.7 hours. The increase corresponds to thirteen additional three-minute songs per week. At 20.9 hours, Germany is slightly above the global average. The figures are taken from the "Engaging with Music" 2023 report, the annual survey on global music consumption by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the umbrella organization of the German Music Industry Association (BVMI). The report is based on responses from more than 43,000 people in 26 countries.

For the first time this year, the report also includes a chapter on artificial intelligence (AI), the development of which presents both opportunities and challenges for the music industry. According to the German music industry association Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V., this shows that people value authenticity: Eight out of ten people (79 percent) believe that human creativity is central to the creation of music. For 76 percent, the music or vocals of an artist should not be used or adopted by an AI without permission.

With an overall occupancy rate of 89.2 percent for 326 performances and 241,507 admissions, Zurich Opera House is in an exceptionally good position by international standards, according to a press release. The opera division recorded 146,963 admissions in the 161 performances and thus achieved an occupancy rate of 87.5 percent. Eight productions were at 99 percent capacity. The most successful production was Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin with one hundred percent capacity utilization for five performances. The major project, which will run for several seasons The Ring of the Nibelung was 97.1 percent in favor of The Valkyrie and 98.9 percent for Siegfried was also extremely well attended.

Ballett Zürich thrilled 61,631 people with its 62 performances and achieved a very good attendance rate of 95.4 percent. The most successful production here was the ballet Anna Karenina by Christian Spuck with eight performances at 99.4 percent. The 46 events for children and families were attended 14,808 times.

Sponsorship income once again exceeded the CHF 10 million mark. Income from performances in the 2022/23 season amounted to CHF 2 million. To cushion the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, a provision of CHF 2.49 million was set aside for the 2022 season, which was released in full. This resulted in an annual profit of 954,569 francs. This profit fully compensates for the losses of the three previous coronavirus seasons. The Zurich Opera House has thus survived the pandemic with no impact on earnings.

The 37-year-old Bringuier, who comes from Nice himself, will take over the position until the end of the 2024/2025 season. He succeeds Daniele Callegari, who has led the orchestra since September 2021. Bringuier has been Artiste Associé with the orchestra since the 2019/20 season. He can look back on a long history with the ensemble: he played with the orchestra as a cellist at the age of 13 and conducted it for the first time two years later.

In November 2011 and June 2012, Bringuier was guest conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. In the 2014/2015 season, he succeeded David Zinman as conductor and music director of the orchestra. However, his contract was not renewed.

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice was founded in 1945 as L'Orchestre Symphonique Municipal de la Ville de Nice. It consists of up to 120 musicians. It regularly takes part in the Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo and has also performed at the Chorégies d'Orange, the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and the Musiques au Cœur d'Antibes.

De Forceville studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris with Olivier Charlier, where she has been teaching as an assistant to Philippe Graffin since 2021, and continued her studies in Germany with Antje Weithaas and Mihaela Martin. She plays a violin by Lorenzo Storioni from 1777, on loan from the Boubo-Music Foundation. She will take up her post in Lausanne definitively in March 2024.

Founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL) is now led by French violinist Renaud Capuçon after six years under the artistic direction of American conductor Joshua Weilerstein. It consists of around 40 musicians and has a repertoire ranging from early Baroque to contemporary works.