Merlin studied in Clermont-Ferrand, Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris and Geneva and is co-founder of the Quatuor Ébène, which he helped shape as a cellist for 25 years. At the same time, he developed a career as a conductor and founded the chamber music collective Les Forces Majeures in 2014. Merlin will replace Jean-François Heisser in Poitiers, who has led the orchestra for 25 years.

Founded in 1981, the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine has a line-up of 45 to 50 musicians. It is based in the Théâtre Auditorium in the city of Poitiers and performs in both large cities and smaller communities.

Joseph Bastian has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Munich Symphony Orchestra since September 2023. He is also Principal Conductor of the Asian Youth Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne. In Besançon, he initiates interdisciplinary collaborations in which he brings neuroscience to the concert stage together with researcher Emmanuel Bigand, for example. His opera conducting engagements include Hansel and Gretel and Luisa Miller at the Lucerne Theater, or Haydn's Il mondo della luna with the Zurich Opera Studio.

Founded in 1945 by Kurt Graunke, the Munich Symphony Orchestra has 60 members of 17 nationalities. From 2014 to 2022, Kevin John Edusei, who was Chief Conductor of the Bern Opera from 2015 to 2019, held the position of Chief Conductor. In the 2022/2023 season, Nodoka Okisawa was Artist in Residence. Joseph Bastian took over the position from the 2023/2024 season.

Cellacchi prevailed against 357 candidates from 41 countries. The competition, which takes place every four years in Kobe, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Its list of prizewinners includes internationally renowned flutists such as Emmanuel Pahud and Andrea Oliva.

Riccardo Cellacchi, born in Rome in 1999, studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, where he obtained a Master of Music with top marks. At the age of 18, he became an academy member of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and at the age of 19 he was appointed principal flute with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, a position he still holds today.

The Belgian Reiland shaped the orchestra for nine seasons, writes the online magazine Pizzicato.lu in its press release. Founded in 1976, the Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est (previously Orchestre philharmonique de Lorraine, Philharmonie de Lorraine and, until 2018, Orchestre national de Lorraine) has 72 members and gives around 90 concerts a year. In 2002, it was awarded the "Orchestre national en région" label by the French Ministry of Culture.

David Reiland was artistic and musical director of the Orchester de Chambre du Luxembourg from 2012 to 2018 and has been music director of the Korean National Symphony Orchestra since 2021. As the first guest of the Sinfonietta Lausanne and Schumann guest of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, he also works closely with these orchestras.

Born in Moscow, Surkov studied at the Moscow Gnessin Academy of Music and at the Berlin University of the Arts. He received additional inspiration from Ingo Goritzki, Alexei Ogrintchouk and Heinz Holliger, among others.

He won the Muri Competition in 2023 and the ARD Music Competition in 2024. As a soloist, he has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Basel Philharmonic Orchestra. He is principal oboist with the Musikkollegium Winterthur.

In addition to his work as a soloist, Leonid Surkov is also involved in teaching - for example by leading chamber music groups in Ochsenhausen or his master classes at the Gnessin Summer School.

According to journalist Daniel Leutenegger, Elias, who had lived in Switzerland since 1968, studied at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern in the 1980s. He began his career with bands such as the Swiss Jazz Quintet and Mani Planzer's big band, with Pony Poindexter and Vince Benedetti in Switzerland, before continuing his career in Germany with Bob Degen and Zipflo Reinhardt. He increasingly played in bands around Joe Haider, where he also worked as a teacher at the Munich Jazz School.

He then worked with numerous musicians such as Archie Shepp, Woody Shaw, Franco Ambrosetti and the Great Guitars feat. Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd. In addition, he formed the group Friends 4 Friends with Wege Wüthrich, Franz Biffiger and Michel Poffet; he also worked regularly with Max Neissendorfer, Marianna Polistena, Sandy Patton, Theo Kapilidis and bands led by guitarist Stephan Urwyler such as Caribey. Most recently, he has also worked with the Swing Kids, Michel Poffet, Thomas Stampbach and Chantemoiselle and as a drum teacher.

Born in 1971, Gregor Schwellenbach is a multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer for cinema, TV, radio plays and theater. He works with rappers (Xatar, Alligatoah, Souly), dance producers (Kölsch, Brandt Brauer Frick) and Can founder Irmin Schmidt, with whom he has a long-standing artistic partnership. At the Folkwang University of the Arts, he was instrumental in establishing the Master of Popular Music and taught there for 11 years.

38-year-old Niko Seibold is a saxophonist, composer, bandleader and program director. He is co-founder of the Toskana Jazzworkshop and the Basel leftfield label Hout Records as well as artistic director of the Tis Jazz Fest in Basel and the Sunday matinees in the Merian Gärten in Basel. He is also a lecturer in composition and theory at the ZHdK PreCollege of Music. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Jim McNeely and Dave Liebman, at the Jazzcampus Basel with Domenic Landolf and Guillermo Klein and at the MuHo Mannheim with Jürgen Seefelder.

Schwellenbach succeeds Heiko Freund, who built up the Pop study programs at the ZHdK and led them for twenty years. Seibold succeeds Matthias Kohler.

Of the 133 candidates, Lecocq was joined in the final by Simon Haje from Germany and Seungho Chung from South Korea. Paul Lecocq studies at the CNSMD in Paris and was already a semi-finalist at the Concours Long-Thibaud and a finalist at the Concours International de Piano Samson François at the age of 16. In 2023, the young pianist won 3rd prize and the press prize at the Euregio Piano Award in Geilenkirchen in Germany.

The International Clara Haskil Piano Competition was founded in 1963 in honor of the Romanian-Swiss pianist Clara Haskil and has been a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions since 1976. It has been held every two years since 1963. Until 1969 it was held in Lucerne, since then in Vevey, where Clara Haskil lived from 1942 until her death in 1960.

The graduation ceremony marked the end of the Bachelor's degree course for 83 people and the Master's degree course for 119 at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts' Department of Music. In the Bachelor of Arts in Music, 73 graduates received their diplomas, 54 of them in the classical music profile, 17 in the jazz profile and 2 in the folk music profile. There were six graduates in the Bachelor of Arts/Music and Movement program and two graduates in the Bachelor of Arts in Music/Church Music program.

A total of 119 diplomas were awarded in the Master of Arts in Music, most of them in the Classical Performance major (25). In the Master of Arts in Music Education, 62 graduates acquired their professional qualification for teaching at music schools or secondary schools.

There were also 77 music education and artistic further education qualifications in a Master of Advanced Studies (MAS), Diploma of Advanced Studies (DAS) or Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS).

At the graduation ceremony, three prizes of CHF 2,000 each were awarded by the Strebi Foundation for outstanding Bachelor graduates. They went to Natalie Andreae, Bachelor of Arts in Music, Jazz vocal, Improvisation; Michael Husu, Bachelor of Arts in Music, Classical instrumental, Piano and Muriel Fässler, Bachelor of Arts / Music and Movement.

The Foundation for the Promotion of Music at the Lucerne School of Music awarded prizes from the Hella Siegrist Fund for piano pedagogical excellence at the graduation ceremony to Roman Halter (1st prize), Athina Waser and Ana Dorado Suela (2nd prize ex aequo) and
Jure Markić (3rd prize). The audition for scholarships for pianistic excellence will follow later.

According to the canton's press release, the winners should be able to "continue and deepen their work and artistic activities". The prize could be "a trigger for important developments and for establishing themselves in the local cultural scene".

The winners of the ST.ART - Young Talent Award Culture Music 2025 are José Manuel Vázquez, Master Performance Jazz, majoring in trombone; Silvan Sterki, Master Solo Performance, majoring in violoncello; Eleonora Kostina, Master Performance Classical, majoring in percussion; Elide Sulsenti, Master Interpretation in Contemporary Music, majoring in violoncello; Paula Patricia Schweinberger, Master Church Music, majoring in organ; Asli Ayben Özdemir, Master Performance Classical, majoring in violin.

The Canton of Lucerne launched the ST.ART - Young Talent Award in 2023 together with the Departments of Design, Film Art and Music at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. It focuses on supporting artists who are at the beginning of their careers. The total contribution of CHF 60,000 will be divided equally between the Departments of Design, Film Art and Music. The music awards of CHF 5,000 each were presented at the graduation ceremony of the Department of Music.

The City Council is applying for the loan with report and application 27/2025: "Weiterentwicklung Musikalische Bildung. Measures and offers. Rejection of Motion 188". According to the city's press release, around 15.896 million francs of the amount will be spent on annually recurring personnel costs over ten years and 125,000 francs on one-off infrastructure costs. The aim is "equitable access to music for all children and young people, especially in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods", as called for in Motion 188 from July 2022.

Through close cooperation between elementary school and music schools, coordinated with the introduction of day schools, comprehensive measures are to improve the quality of music lessons. Regular lessons will be improved through team teaching with music specialists, and new offerings such as music projects, musical activities during supervision time and during the lunch break will be anchored in all school buildings. The role of the music coordinator in each school building promotes networking, while simplified access to music lessons reduces organizational hurdles.

Original article:
https://www.stadtluzern.ch/aktuelles/newslist/2553460

In parallel to his cultural management duties, Bucher is pursuing an artistic career as an organist, which, according to the Geneva Chamber Orchestra's press release, has taken him regularly to western Switzerland, France and Europe. Under his leadership, the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève (OCG) will "continue its mission as an orchestra resolutely focused on the 21st century". With a program that combines classical repertoire, contemporary music and interdisciplinary projects, it aims to make classical music accessible and approachable for everyone.

The OCG is currently expanding its activities thanks to increased support from the City and Canton of Geneva, the upcoming move to the Concorde cultural space and thus new artistic ambitions under the direction of Maestro Raphaël Merlin, who has been reappointed for the next three years.

Dieter Ammann, co-director of the Lucerne Festival Academy's Composer Seminar, conductor Baldur Brönnimann and contemporary dramaturge Mark Sattler have selected the two. They have been commissioned to write new works for orchestra, which will be premiered with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) as part of the 2027 summer festival.

Arnau Brichs, born in 2000 in Sant Joan Despí, Spain, lives in Paris. He studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London and graduated with distinction. He has been Composer in Residence at IRCAM in Paris since 2024. Brichs attended the Lucerne Festival's Composer Seminar in 2021 and has participated in numerous international academies, including Viitasaari and Madrid.

Aregnaz Martirosyan was born in the Armenian capital Yerevan in 1993 and lives in Lucerne. She studied composition at the Lucerne School of Music. She also took part in the Composer Seminar at the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2022. Her works have been performed by Ensemble Modern, the Basel Sinfonietta and the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, among others.

The "Roche Young Commissions" were launched in 2013 as a cooperation between Roche, the Lucerne Festival and the Lucerne Festival Academy. The "Roche Young Commissions" give up-and-coming composers up to the age of 30 the opportunity to write works for orchestra, alternating with the "Roche Commissions" in the following year. Applications are invited via an open call.

The process of renewing the cultural funding guidelines, which began in 2023, was completed this summer, according to the city's press release. The main requests from cultural professionals were for more precise wording, more information on the application process, simplified application submission and generally better communication of information relating to cultural funding (important dates, infrastructure funding, posters, etc.).

The new cultural funding guidelines are more precisely formulated and clearly laid out. A Q&A provides brief and concise information on cultural funding in Aarau. The translation into simple language should also make it easier to access cultural funding. Digital projects and the promotion of artists at the beginning of their careers have been given greater weight in terms of content. It is also emphasized that support is always re-evaluated and that even if funding is approved several times, there is no entitlement to future funding. All documents are available on the website of the City of Aarau.

At its meeting on August 21, 2025, the Cultural Promotion Commission dealt with 18 applications from various sectors, with the new cultural promotion guidelines already being applied. In total, the Cultural Promotion Commission awarded grants amounting to CHF 56,900. More than half of these were for projects in the field of classical music/chorus music - the sector that was most strongly represented with ten applications.

According to the magazine's press release, Makarova was The Strad Born in Moscow in 1981, she studied at the Moscow Conservatory. At the age of ten, she won first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Moscow. In 2008, she became a member of the orchestra of the Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofía in Spain.

As part of her chamber music career, she has worked with cellist Patrick Demenga, among others. She has held teaching positions at the Gnessin Academy in Moscow and the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Florence and has been a professor at the Haute École de Musique in Lausanne since 2014. In addition to her career as a musician and teacher, she is a regular jury member at international competitions.

Original article:
https://www.thestrad.com/news/violinist-svetlana-makarova-appointed-professor-in-vienna/20119.article