Christian Kobi is a saxophonist and regularly performs solo and as a member of the Konus Quartet; he is the initiator and director of the "zoom in" festival for improvised music, a lecturer in improvised music at Bern University of the Arts (HKB) and winner of the Music Prize of the Canton of Bern. Martin Schütz is stepping down from the committee after nine festival editions. He has been a member of the co-directorship since 2016 and has been a strong advocate of improvised music during this time.

Jointly organized by personalities from Bern's musical life, ensembles from the independent scene, Bernese cultural organizers and institutions, the Bern Music Festival, under the artistic direction of a multi-member board of trustees, is a platform for the music scene in the city and canton of Bern; it strives for national and international appeal. The stylistic spectrum ranges from old to contemporary, from improvised and experimental to electronic music. The festival takes place annually over five days under a common theme.

In addition to Christian Kobi, Tamriko Kordzaia, Vera Schnider and Thomas Meyer are members of the festival's board of trustees. The next edition will take place from September 2 to 6, 2026 on the theme of "Lightning".

Georgios Balatsinos was Music Director at the Deutsch-Sorbisches Volkstheater Bautzen (Germany) from 2021 to 2024 and Chief Conductor of the Wrocławska Opera in Wrocław (Poland) from 2023 to 2025. He lives with his family in Oberhofen am Thunersee and will continue his many years of artistic and pedagogical work in the region.

The Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese (ISA), based in the Ridotto of the Teatro Comunale in L'Aquila, is one of thirteen Italian concert and orchestral institutions (ICO) recognized by the Ministry of Culture with the task of promoting musical activities in their respective areas. It was founded in 1970 and has a permanent professional orchestra. The artistic director is currently Ettore Pellegrino, who succeeded Vittorio Antonellini in 2010.

Culture is not a minor matter, writes the umbrella organization of professional cultural and media organizations and collecting societies in Switzerland. It is systemically relevant, strengthens democracy, reduces susceptibility to manipulation and extremism, and contributes significantly to Switzerland's resilience, prosperity and security. Last but not least, it is a relevant economic factor.

At the same time, improvements are needed: Suissculture is calling for accession to "Creative Europe", the full protection of cultural funding in state aid law, the integration of the cultural sector into Erasmus+ and an institutional cultural dialog. This is the only way to ensure that Switzerland strengthens its cultural diversity and cultural creation and, as part of the European cultural area, secures its democratic resilience and international capacity to act.

The whole statement: 
https://www.suisseculture.ch/?article=ja_zu_den_bilateralen_iii_aber_mit_creative_europe

Lucie Leguay, who was discovered in 2018 at the Tremplin pour Jeunes Cheffes d'orchestre (springboard for young female conductors) at the Philharmonie de Paris, holds a Master's degree in orchestral conducting from the HEMU-Haute École de Musique (Vaud site, Lausanne). In 2023, she won the Victoires de la Musique Classique in the category "Révélation chef d'orchestre" (discovery as a conductor).

Lucie Leguay works as a guest conductor with numerous orchestras, including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Konzerthaus Berlin and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with composers such as Peter Eötvös, Kaija Saariaho and Heinz Holliger.

The Sinfonietta de Lausanne was founded in 1981 by Jean-Marc Grob under the name Orchestre des Rencontres Musicales and was under the direction of Alexander Mayer from 2013 to 2017, before passing to David Reiland. The ensemble has a variable staff and accepts students from the HEMU, whom it accompanies on their way to becoming orchestral musicians.

In the experiment, participants learned to assign fine touch patterns similar to Braille dots to certain sound sequences. One group of patterns was associated with speech-like pseudowords (e.g. "fromp" or "schpepf"), the other with musical tone sequences. After several training sessions, it was found that only those touch patterns that were associated with speech-like sounds could subsequently be better distinguished by touch alone. This is seen as a clear indication that linguistic signals directly shape sensory perception.

The research team sees this as an important contribution to understanding the close links between language, cognition and sensory perception. The findings illustrate how language shapes perception and helps people to recognize more subtle differences than would otherwise be possible. The study Language - but not music - shapes tactile perception was carried out in cooperation with the Cluster of Excellence "Science of Intelligence" and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Original article: https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.10006

According to the theater's press release, Katja Langenbach and Wanda Puvogel have been part of Ina Karr's artistic management team as acting and dance directors respectively since the 21/22 season. From the coming season, they will jointly take over the directorship of the Lucerne Theater. They will hand over their current division managers to internal staff. The teams of the two divisions will be restructured and in some cases supplemented by new staff. The two co-directors will continue to actively accompany and support their current divisions. Ina Karr is leaving the Lucerne Theater at the end of the 25/26 season after five years. She was appointed General Director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein last June.

As before, the complex opera division, which is the largest in terms of personnel, will be jointly managed by Opera Director Ursula Benzing and Music Director Jonathan Bloxham. Teresa Rotemberg remains director of the Junges Luzerner Theater.

Katja Langenbach studied dramaturgy and directing in Munich and New York. After working as an assistant at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg and at Bayerischer Rundfunk, she has been working as a freelance director since 2005. Since 2021, she has been acting director at the Lucerne Theater, where she most recently directed the production "Hard Land".

After completing her violin studies, Wanda Puvogel moved backstage and has now been working in very different contexts in the dance sector for three decades. For three years, she was responsible for tour planning and organization for major international dance companies at the Norddeutsche Konzertdirektion Melsine Grevesmühl. In Switzerland since 2007, she worked from 2008 as dramaturge and manager of the Bern Ballet, directed by Cathy Marston. From 2014, as a member of the professional association Danse Suisse, she campaigned for a better anchoring of dance in Switzerland and good working conditions for dance professionals. Well-connected nationally and internationally, she worked as a dramaturge for the Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps from 2015 to 2020. She has been dance director at the Lucerne Theater since 2021.

This is a Letter, which Johannes Brahms wrote to the music scholar and Bach biographer Spitta in the summer of 1873. The three-page letter, signed in his own hand, was previously in private ownership in the USA and is now accessible to researchers and the general public via the Brahms Portal.

It is already the second in the Lübeck collection. In it, Johannes Brahms thanks the music scholar who had sent him the newly published first volume of his great Bach biography. Spitta had worked on it for almost ten years. The letter of thanks documents not only their shared passion for the great masters of the past and Johann Sebastian Bach in particular, but also Brahms' great appreciation for the biographer's work.

The letter is accessible to researchers and the general public via the recently launched Brahms Portal. Since August 1, the Brahms Portal has offered innovative digital access to the unique Lübeck collection as well as to the life and work of the composer. Almost 10,000 works and objects - including autographs, letters, photographs and first prints - are already recorded here according to the latest standards, semantically networked and accessible worldwide. The letter will be shown for the first time at the Brahms Institute Museum on December 13 as part of the "Christmas with Brahms" event.

Katharina Andres developed her interest in early music at an early age at the Saarbrücken music school through ensemble lessons with Bernhard Stilz, where she became acquainted with the music and instruments (recorder, crumhorn, shawm, pommer, dulcian) of the 16th and 17th centuries. At the age of twelve, she received her first baroque oboe lessons from Elsa Frank. She completed her studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Conrad Steinmann and Katharina Arfken with two diploma concerts: 2005 with a focus on baroque (recorder and baroque oboe), 2006 with a focus on renaissance (recorder, shawm, pommer and dulcian).

Since then, she has also worked extensively with the classical and romantic repertoire and instruments. She has been principal oboist with the Prague orchestra Collegium 1704 under the direction of Václav Luks since 2013 and has been teaching historical oboe at the HfMDK Frankfurt am Main since 2020.

Founded over 60 years ago, the Camerata is firmly established in Bern with its own concert series. It performs at international festivals and in leading concert halls in Switzerland and beyond. The ensemble is also closely associated with its two artistic partners, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and cellist Steven Isserlis.

Werner Hasler is a live sampling artist, electric musician and trumpeter who prefers to realize site-specific and multi-channel hybrid forms between installation and live performance. He creates unique, new sound spaces in numerous local and international collaborative projects and formations. He also teaches on the Jazz and Contemporary Music course at Bern University of the Arts.

ESC winner Nemo's style is a mixture of pop, hip-hop and classical music. According to the Canton of Bern, the result is "a unique combination of tradition and modernity". With technical precision, musical sensitivity and an unmistakable expression, Nemo has enriched the Swiss music scene in the long term.

With the music prize, the Canton of Bern is also recognizing Soukey's achievements to date as well as her commitment to diversity, artistic innovation and social relevance. Soukey represents a new generation of female musicians who reflect the present and shape the future with artistic courage, intellectual depth and emotional effectiveness.

The prize money amounts to CHF 15,000 each, while the "Coup de cœur" prize for young talent is endowed with CHF 3,000. The entire announcement can be read here: https://www.be.ch/de/start/dienstleistungen/medien/medienmitteilungen.html?newsID=d17ae0cb-13e3-48f9-84ab-c734842bf262

Dawidiuk will become General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and Director of the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr from the 2026/27 season. The 25-year-old is currently studying conducting in the Master Specialized Performance with Christoph-Mathias Mueller at the Conductors Studio ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts). He is also deputy conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

His numerous guest conducting engagements include appearances with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. As a pianist and organist, he performs in concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Tonhalle Zurich.

Founded in 1919, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra was led by the Israeli-American conductor Steven Sloane from 1994 to 2021. During his tenure, he received two awards from the German Music Publishers Association for his concert programs (1996/1997 and 2004/2005 seasons).

Sloane's greatest achievements also include the realization of the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr concert hall, which opened in 2016 and of which he was Artistic Director until his departure. Since the start of the 2021/2022 season, Taiwan-born conductor Tung-Chieh Chuang has been General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr.

The song As soon as day began to peepin which a French fop makes fun of a girls' boarding school, was part of a play from 1691 entitled Love for Moneywritten by Thomas D'Urfey, a frequent collaborator of Purcell.

The piano manuscript has an elaborate binding of red leather with gold decorations, indicating that it once belonged to a wealthy owner. Around 1810 it was repurposed, with some of the blank staves being used as lines for the index of Thetford town council minutes.

Both discoveries provided important insights into the kind of music Purcell composed in the last five years of his short life, quotes the British Guardian the musicologist Stephen Rose.

Rose is leading a project entitled "Music, Heritage, Place: Unlocking the Musical Collections of England's County Record Offices", a collaboration between Royal Holloway University of London and Newcastle University to catalog music manuscripts in local archives.

Original article:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/oct/07/experts-find-music-english-composer-henry-purcell

According to the ZHdK press release, the partnership "builds on successful collaborations of recent years, for example between ZHdK/taZ and Ballett Zürich, and will expand these across disciplines and departments in the future". Plans include joint formats in the new venue of the opera house in Oerlikon, the development of digital projects, participation in festivals such as Zurich Baroque as well as symposia, research and networking initiatives.

A particular focus is on promoting young talent. This includes internships, mentoring programs, exchange formats and joint projects to teach music and dance. This gives ZHdK students practical insights into artistic work at the opera house. At the same time, the networking of educational and cultural institutions beyond Zurich is to be strengthened in order to support the development of young talent even more effectively internationally.

More info:
https://www.zhdk.ch/meldung/neue-impulse-fuer-kunst-ausbildung-und-forschung-opernhaus-zuerich-und-zuercher-hochschule-der-kuenste-vertiefen-ihre-partnerschaft-8748

This year, the contribution of CHF 13,000 will be awarded to Sergey Tanin by Corine Mauch, President of the City and Foundation Board. The award to the young pianist is also a tribute to the legacy and life's work of the founder: Sergey Tanin will perform a song and piano program that sheds light on Nico Kaufmann's musically diverse life - from his beginnings as a classical pianist, to his work as a stage performer in Zurich's Cabaret, to becoming a composer with a language all his own.

Sergey Tanin was born in Yakutia (Siberia) in 1995 and began playing the piano at the age of 5. During his studies with Irina Plotnikova at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he won the European Piano Competition in Bremen in 2016. In 2019, he moved to Switzerland to continue his studies with Claudio Martinez-Mehner as a recipient of the Federal Excellence Scholarship at the Basel Music Academy. In October 2020, Sergey won first prize and the audience prize at the Kissinger Klavierolymp in Bad Kissingen, Bavaria, and stood in for Hélène Grimaud at her concert in Basel in the same month.

Music is a lifeblood and a resource for the future, the music councils write in a joint statement. It connects people across borders, promotes democratic participation and is an important social and economic factor. However, the framework conditions are under pressure: the dismantling of educational structures, blanket austerity measures, digital market distortions and politically motivated restrictions on cultural diversity are endangering the breadth and quality of musical life.

Among other things, the councils are "concerned that music education programs are being weakened and that transitions between school, music school, university and practice are uncertain". They call for a sustainable strengthening of music education with clear quality standards, good staffing, reliable talent development and accessibility for all - regardless of origin, income or place of residence.

The entire closing statement can be found here:
https://www.musikrat.de/media/aktuelles/meldung/musik-als-zukunftskraft-gegen-den-abbau-des-kulturlebens

Alessandra Münger has been playing the harp since the age of six and took harp lessons at the Zurich Conservatory from 2010 to 2022. In September 2022, she began her bachelor's degree in harp performance with Sarah O'Brien at the Zurich University of the Arts, graduating with distinction in July 2025. Since September 2025, she has been studying for a Master's degree in Performance at the ZHdK.

The Reinl Competition took place for the 20th time this year. It is organized by the Franz Josef Reinl Foundation in cooperation with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The other winners are Lauren Ashley Swain (USA) in second place and Gabriela Dudziak (Poland) in third place. The first prize is endowed with 3000 euros. The Reinl Composition Prize was also awarded: The winner is Kefal Chen, whose work "Up Skyward" was premiered at the competition.