Paavo Järvi will conduct the opening concert of the Summer Festival on August 11 and the concert on August 12, his first time conducting the orchestra. Both concert programs remain unchanged. On August 16, Andrés Orozco-Estrada will conduct, and in the second half of the concert, the Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz will replace Sergei Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 1 in D minor. In the first half, as recently announced, Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini op. 43 will be performed with soloist Beatrice Rana. According to the Lucerne Festival press release, tickets remain valid.

Riccardo Chailly has been Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra since 2016. He conducts three to four concerts during each Festival summer, plus a three-day spring residency from 2022. Numerous performances are now available on DVD or CD; the most recent releases include orchestral works by Richard Strauss (2019) and the first part of Lucerne's Rachmaninov cycle (2020).

Pictures published by the Afghan government showed, according to The Strad burning instruments, including guitars, a harmonium and an amplification system. Aziz al-Rahman al-Muhajir, the head of the Afghan "Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice", explains in Herat that the promotion of music leads to "moral corruption".

Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have continuously issued laws and regulations that reflect a radical interpretation of Islam, including a ban on playing music in public. The militant group had already imposed a ban on music during its last reign in the late 1990s.

Stanley Chia-Ming Dodds was born in Canada, grew up in Australia and now lives in Berlin as a German-Australian dual citizen. He began playing the violin and piano in Adelaide at the age of four, attended the Bruckner Conservatory and the Musikgymnasium in Linz before studying at the Lucerne Conservatory. He continued his violin studies at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic and was accepted into the orchestra as a violinist in 1994. He studied conducting in Australia, Switzerland and Germany.

His recordings of works by Wolfgang Rihm with musicians from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were nominated in the "Conductor of the Year" category at the German Opus Classic Awards 2022. Other important productions include Martón Illés' Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatschinskaya and the Karajan Academy Orchestra.

The Sydney Youth Orchestra (SYO) offers young musicians, from beginners to pre-professional musicians, the opportunity to socialize, create music and advocate for orchestral music. Musicians can audition each year and are placed in orchestras and ensembles best suited to their level of development. The SYO offers orchestral training to musicians between the ages of 6 and 25.

For the project, scores and films in libraries and film archives in Germany, Italy, France and the USA will be examined from April 2024. The main focus will be on music that was newly and specially composed to increase the prestige of individual films.

The researchers led by Oliver Huck from the Institute for Historical Musicology at the University of Hamburg assume that music represents a separate, partially complementary level of storytelling in dramaturgical terms. With their research, they want to gain fundamental insights into the musical aesthetics and musical framework of silent film. They assume that conventions of musical dramaturgy and audiovisual perception were already established before the sound film and continue to have an effect on today's music.

Huck's project is being funded with 750,000 euros as part of the Reinhart Koselleck Program of the German Research Foundation.

The Award for Marketing + Architecture has been announced for the eighth time. It honors companies, institutions, planning offices and clients who "use architecture as a marketing tool in a high-quality manner". Under the leadership of Judit Solt, editor-in-chief of the Schweizerische Bauzeitung, the jury is made up of advertisers such as Frank Bodin as well as architects and cultural entrepreneurs, including ZHdK lecturer Basil Rogger.

The Künstlerhaus Boswil has been nominated alongside four other buildings in the category of public buildings, sports facilities, hospitals, railroad stations, school buildings and cultural buildings. The award recognizes the preservation of a listed outbuilding belonging to the Künstlerhaus. Users are provided with a modern, bright building that can be "experienced right up to the ridge" thanks to a new staircase in the cleared tenn.

More info: https://www.marketingarchitektur.ch/

As announced by the German Music Industry Association (BVMI), sales of streams, CDs, downloads and vinyl totaled 1.056 billion euros from January to June inclusive, an increase of 6.6 percent compared to the same period last year (H1 2022: 990 million euros according to the full-year financial statements for 2022). Demand for physical sound storage media was at a similar level to the same period of the previous year and thus remained stable (-0.8%). CDs (-4.1%) contributed 11.2% to total sales, while vinyl achieved a market share of 6.0% following a renewed growth spurt of 6.3%. And contrary to the long-term trend, sales of DVDs/Blu-rays rose slightly (+0.9%).

Together, CDs, vinyl, DVDs and singles still account for almost a fifth (18.0%) of sales, while the digital market, which gained 8.4%, accounts for a good four-fifths. While revenue from audio streaming increased by 9.7%, downloads fell by 4.9%.

The competition will be held from August 28 to September 6 for the harp - with the Swiss Tjasha Gafner - and from August 30 to September 8 for the double bass.
From September 1 to 9, piano trios - including the Arabesque Trio (Russia/Germany/Switzerland) - will compete and from September 2 to 10, the viola will be on the program. The prizewinners' concerts will take place on September 13, 14 and 15.

The ARD Music Competition has been held annually since 1952 in several disciplines and comprises a total of 21 categories. It is organized by Bayerischer Rundfunk and is considered the largest competition for classical music in the world.

According to unisono Managing Director Gerald Mertens, the fact that 60% of classical music events were underutilized in the nationwide unisono trend analysis last winter is now history. The positive trend is confirmed by numerous reports: the Komische Oper Berlin closed its season with 90% capacity utilization, the Mozart Festival in Würzburg achieved a record 94.2% in July, and the Kissinger Sommer is currently also reporting record audience numbers compared to before the pandemic with 80% capacity utilization.

The fact that tickets for the Bayreuth Festival are still available a few days before the premiere is an isolated case that is due to a lack of marketing and extremely high ticket prices. The influx of classical open-air events is also promising and even promising: "Staatsoper für alle" on Bebelplatz in Berlin reached 33,000 visitors, "Klassik airleben 2023" by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig 35,000 visitors and the Hannover Klassik Open Air at Maschpark set a new record last weekend with 35,000 visitors.

During the forthcoming planning of the complete renovation of the opera house, the canton writes, a bridging building is to cushion the most urgent need for space. The cantonal government has approved a loan of up to CHF 3.7 million for this temporary building. The opera house commissioned a study on space requirements back in 2019, followed a year later by an analysis of workplace conditions in the existing rooms. The results of both studies are clear: the opera house suffers from a considerable lack of space, which leads to barely acceptable working conditions for many employees. According to the study, waiting any longer is not justifiable.

The findings of the study paint a clear picture: of the total of 358 rooms, 42 have unacceptable working conditions and 90 others have partially unacceptable working conditions. These are rooms with double or triple occupancy, rooms without daylight and workstations in the corridors. The acute lack of space means that the current legal guidelines for occupational safety and workplace design standards cannot be complied with in many places. All in all, the study shows an additional space requirement of around 60 percent.

Original article:
https://www.zh.ch/de/news-uebersicht/medienmitteilungen/2023/07/ueberbrueckungsbau-fuer-das-opernhaus.html

From 1997 to 2002, Nott was chief conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and from 2000 to 2003, he worked for the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. He is Music Director of the Tokyo Symphony and Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. He took over the position of Principal Conductor and Music Director at the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in January 2017.

The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) was founded in 1918 by Ernest Ansermet. It is administered as a foundation and is mainly funded by the canton and city of Geneva, is associated with Radio Télévision Suisse and functions as the opera orchestra at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Deda Cristina Colonna studied ballet at the Civico Istituto Musicale Brera (Novara) and at the École Supérieure d'Etudes Chorégraphiques (Paris). She completed her training at the Sorbonne (Paris), specializing in Renaissance and Baroque dance. She also graduated from the drama school of the Teatro Stabile di Genova and performed in productions in Italy, France and Germany. She was a soloist and guest choreographer with the New York Baroque Dance Company. Since 2021 she has been the director of the Accademia G. Marziali dance school in Seveso.

She has been teaching gesture at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis since 2021. Her most recent productions include Rameau's Castor et Pollux (Warszawska Opera Kameralna, 2021), for which she was awarded the 2022 Jan Kiepura Prize for Best Director, Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (Teatro Coccia, Novara / Teatro G.B. Pergolesi, Jesi 2021) and Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans (Teatro Verdi Pisa, Teatro Ponchielli Cremona 2023). She also took part in the opera project Muzio Scevola of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in April 2023.

In its ruling of 9 May 2023, the cantonal court dismissed all appeals against the competition and adjudication process for a new Lucerne theater. The cantonal court's website now shows that this ruling is legally binding. The competition has therefore been successfully concluded with the winning project "überall" by Ilg Santer Architekten Zurich. The project prevailed against 127 other projects. The prize money for the six top-ranked project submissions and the compensation for all 12 projects that were assessed in the second stage of the competition can therefore be paid out.

The revision of the project can therefore begin immediately. It includes various points of criticism from the jury process. Points that strongly influenced the public debate have also been included. The revision process is expected to take around six months. It is then planned to present the result in a parliamentary bill and submit it to the City Council together with the application for the project loan.

Alina Pogostkina was born in St. Petersburg, grew up in Germany and received her first violin lessons from her father Alexander Pogostkin. She later studied with Antje Weithaas at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music and furthered her baroque violin studies with Reinhard Goebel at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Alina Pogostkina plays a Camillo Camilli from 1752.

As the winner of the 2005 International Sibelius Competition in Helsinki, she has performed with major orchestras and festivals worldwide. Together with Danjulo Ishizaka and Nimrod Guez, she has founded a string trio with which she has already successfully toured Germany. With a view to the spiritual aspect of music, she developed the "Mindful Music Making" program in 2018, with which she tries to promote mindfulness and the development of individual creativity and musical language in the 21st century.

In the early years of rock music, age was primarily seen as a reflection of conservative values and morals. Driven by the generational conflict, which, due to the leitmotif described above, raised a critical relationship between the generations, the music and the associated lyrics can be seen as a mouthpiece of rebellion against existing value systems. As the bearer of these values and moral concepts, the older generation becomes a target and a natural enemy.

The rebellious leitmotif became even more extreme in the 1970s with the rise of the punk movement and was transferred further in the lyrics to the external view of older people. Some of the examples of how older people are stereotyped range from the extreme to the highly offensive. This leitmotif has persisted in the texts to this day. In general, it is noticeable that the external portrayal of old age is characterized by a very deficient view that in no way corresponds to the heterogeneity of old age that exists today.

Full original article: https://www.iat.eu/media/forschungaktuell_2023-07.pdf

According to the canton's press release, the building construction office completed the renovation of the theater at the end of June after almost three years of construction. Konzert und Theater St.Gallen will move into the new premises after the summer break and prepare for the 2023/2024 season in the renovated theater. The opening premiere of "Lili Elbe" will take place on the evening of October 22, 2023. In the morning, the public will have the opportunity to explore the theater at an open day.

The theater was opened in 1968. The building, designed by Zurich architect Claude Paillard, is widely regarded as a masterpiece of modern theater architecture. The structural engineering department renovated the building technology and large parts of the operating technology. Energy weaknesses were eliminated. In addition, the restructuring and extension create the framework conditions for contemporary theater operations without losing the defining architectural elements. The project began in March 2020 with the construction of the temporary building. Conversion work then began in fall 2020.