The award was announced after Beliaev's performance in the title role of Eugene Oneginthe opera performed this summer as part of the Academy's Atelier Lyrique, accompanied by the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra under the direction of Stanislav Kochanovsky.

Anton Beliaev graduated with honors from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Yekaterinburg in 2020, where he studied with Valery Gurevich. In the same year, he began his bachelor's degree with Michail Lanskoi at the Berlin University of the Arts, where he is currently completing his master's degree. He has been a member of the Semperoper Dresden Opera Studio since the 2023/24 season.

Yves Paternot was the founder of the Friends of the Verbier Festival and a member of the Board of Trustees. To honor his commitment, his friends created the Prix Yves Paternot after his death. The prize is endowed with CHF 10,000, includes an invitation to perform at a future Verbier Festival and entitles the recipient to funding of up to CHF 15,000 for artistic and professional development.

Jorge Rodriguez was awarded 1st prize at both the Moyse International Flute Competition in Sofia, Bulgaria (June 28 - July 2, 2025), and the Cluj International Flute Competition in Romania (July 5 - 12, 2025). According to the Basel University of Music, it is particularly remarkable that there were only three days between the two competitions.

As part of his success, Jorge will have the opportunity to perform as a soloist with various orchestras in Italy and Romania in the coming season. Jorge Rodriguez recently completed his Master's degree in Solo Performance at the Basel University of Music in the class of Felix Renggli.

The Lübeck holdings have been digitally recorded and semantically networked according to the latest standards. The focus is on the musical oeuvre: based on the objects in the collection, a large number of scholarly texts have been written that shed new light on the background to their creation and publication. Almost twenty authors from the German-speaking musicology community have dealt with the objects in the Lübeck collection.

As a lighthouse project for digitization, the Brahms Portal was financed by the structural and excellence budget of the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the Possehl Foundation Lübeck with 800,000 euros. All content is open access and based on the FAIR principles, according to which research data is recorded sustainably. Around 10,000 data records have already been linked in this way. The collection is not yet complete, but will be successively continued in the future.

Link: brahms-portal.com

Yunchan Lim, together with his teacher Minsoo Sohn, impressed the audience in the Rougemont church with a program that included arrangements for two pianos of Richard Strauss' Rose CavalierBrahms' Sonata and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.

Yunchan Lim won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022 at the age of 18. Since then, he has made his debuts with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. In April 2025, he gave his recital debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Yunchan Lim will receive the Olivier Berggruen Prize after Alexandra Dovgan (prizewinner 2023) and Kate Liu (prizewinner 2024).

Established by the German-American art historian, curator and writer Olivier Berggruen, the prize includes a concert as part of the festival program and a trophy, which this year was designed by the Geneva-born artist Olympia Scarry, who now lives in New York. Berggruen comes from a family of patrons and is artistic advisor to the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.

Ekaterina Karpova graduated with honors from Gnessin College (2016) and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow (2021). She completed her second Master's degree in Specialized Music Performance at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB) under the direction of Tomasz Herbut.

Marta Lucjan is a Polish violinist dedicated to the research and performance of contemporary music. She studied at the HKB under the direction of Corina Belcea (Master Specialized Performance, specialization in New Music). In addition to her academic activities, she is the founder and active member of the Aventurin Quartet.

The Eduard Tschumi Music Prize is awarded annually to the best graduate of the HKB's Specialized Music Performance Master's programme. This year's two winners have identical final grades. The prize is endowed with 7000 francs each. With the support of the Bürgi-Willert Foundation, the winner in the soloist specialization also receives the opportunity to perform as a chamber music partner or soloist in the Bern Symphony Orchestra's seasonal programme.

Norrington was an outstanding pioneer of historically informed music-making. He was chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR for 13 years. From 1997 to 2006 he was chief conductor of the Camerata Salzburg. From 2011 to 2016, he conducted the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. He is an honorary conductor in Stuttgart, Salzburg, Zurich and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Bloxham has been Resident Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the London Mozart Players since 2022. This season, he is leading their concert series in St Martin in the Fields and Fairfield Halls and conducting a tour of Switzerland with four concerts. He will take up his new post in the coming 2025/26 season.

Jonathan Bloxham began his career in 2016 as Assistant Conductor with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. He studied cello at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music and graduated with a Master's degree from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He later trained as a conductor with Sian Edwards, Michael Seal, Nicolas Pasquet and Paavo Järvi.

Founded in 1949 as the UK's first chamber orchestra, the London Mozart Players (LMP) is an ensemble of international musicians. It is based at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, Surrey.

The British conductor succeeds Josep Pons, who has been appointed Honorary Conductor after fourteen years in this position. Opened in 1847, the Gran Teatre del Liceu is the largest opera house in the Catalan capital of Barcelona and is located on the Rambles in the city center. It is also the second largest organizer of Wagner festivals, just behind the Bayreuth Festival.

Born in 1962, British conductor Jonathan Nott has been Principal Conductor of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Music Director of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra since 2014. He has been Music Director and Artistic Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande since 2017, with a contract that has been extended until 2026. He will take up the post in Barcelona in the 2026/27 season for an initial period of five years.

According to the online magazine Slipped Disc, Sudraba was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1975. She studied music in Riga, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and at the Basel Academy of Music with Thomas Demenga, as well as with Heinrich Schiff at the Vienna Academy of Music.

In 1997 she joined Gidon Kremer's Kremerata Baltica, where she led the cello section and took part in the ensemble's tours and recordings. The following year she became a member of Kremer's trio. Sudraba has also played with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Orchestra de La Scala in Milan, among others.

As a chamber musician, she has worked with Kremer as well as with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Thomas Quasthoff, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Ilya Gringolts, Per Arne Glorvigen, Joshua Bell and Vadim Sakharov. She was also a guest at the Verbier Festival.

Born in St.Gallen in 1971, Riklin is a composer, musician and author. Together with his creative partner Dominik Flaschka, he realized the musicals Eternal love, East Side Story and My name is Eugen. Another of his formats is Riklin & Schaub, which emerged from the multi-instrumental cabaret trio Heinz de Specht. Roman Riklin was also a member of the Eastern Swiss dialect rock band Mumpitz and the children's song band Marius & die Jagdkapelle. He also founded the Eastern Swiss culture magazine Strings with.

In 2022, Roman Riklin received the Swiss Comedy Award for Freddie - The dialect show (Secondhand Orchestra) and in 2008 the Prix Walo for the best theater production (Ewigi Liebi - the musical). With more than 700,000 visitors, the Eternal love the most successful Swiss musical to date.

The St. Gallen Cultural Foundation honors "significant, sustainable achievements that have an impact beyond the canton's borders" with the art prize, which is endowed with 25,000 francs. The public award ceremony will take place on October 30 in St.Gallen.

According to the city of Lucerne in a press release, social change is having an impact on the education system and is also changing music education. Day schools and the constitutionally enshrined importance of equal access to music education are placing professional and organizational demands on music schools and elementary school.

Motion 188 of July 8, 2022, "Significantly strengthening musical education in Lucerne as a city of music", submitted by a non-partisan group, refers to this. It formulates framework conditions to ensure high-quality music education for all learners in the city of Lucerne. The motion was referred by the city council on May 4, 2023. The credit now requested includes recurring personnel costs for ten years as well as costs for a minor expansion of the infrastructure.

The implementation provides for measures in the form of seven interlocking modules that will improve the quality of regular music lessons across all three school cycles and anchor existing and new musical offerings in all school buildings in the city. It is also intended to create an organizational framework for cooperation between music schools and elementary school and thus promote equal access to music for all learners.

More info:
https://www.stadtluzern.ch/aktuelles/newslist/2515327

The sponsorship will be responsible for the cultural use of the Dampfzentrale in terms of content, organization and financing. It is to "organize a dense and diverse range of events for the population" and maintain collaborations - in particular with Bern's dance professionals. The City of Bern will conclude a multi-year service agreement with the selected sponsor.

The invitation to tender will be published immediately on Simap.chAll interested parties are invited to apply in a two-stage, selective process. In a pre-qualification process, the assessment committee will select three applications that best meet the suitability criteria. These can then submit a concept. The bid submitted by the organization that is awarded the contract in the second stage of the process serves as the basis for negotiating a service contract from 2028.

Following the evaluation of the Cultural Strategy 2025, Chur City Council is developing a new strategy as part of a participatory process. At the end of March, an initial workshop was held with the most important cultural institutions in Chur to discuss key topics and challenges. The cultural department is now expanding participation with a broad-based online survey, which is open until the end of August. All residents of Chur are invited to contribute their perspectives and play an active role in shaping the future cultural strategy.

The city of Chur would like to find out how the population perceives cultural life: What is important? What is missing? In which direction should culture develop? The feedback should form the basis for a broad-based cultural strategy that is closely geared to the needs of the population.

Link to the survey: https://smr.tv/churkultur

Andrea Amarante, born in Trieste in 1974, joined the LAC after eight years in Lucerne, where he held a leading role with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. There he was responsible for artistic planning and international tours and contributed to the strategic development of the orchestra. Prior to this, he gained experience at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Since his arrival in Lugano in 2024 as Head of Music at the LAC, Amarante has led the integration of the LuganoMusica Foundation into the orchestra's structure.

LAC Lugano Arte e Culturathe multidisciplinary cultural center of the city of Lugano, was founded in 2015 as a place for encounters and encounters between different artistic disciplines. Since 2024, it has also been responsible for the city's classical music program. The artistic offer is guaranteed by the residencies of the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana and the Compagnia Finzi Pasca.

Stefan Blunier studied piano, horn, composition and conducting in Bern and at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen. He worked as a Kapellmeister in Mainz, Augsburg and Mannheim before taking up chief conductor and GMD positions in Darmstadt, Bonn, Brussels and, most recently since 2021, Porto. He has held a professorship for symphonic music at the Mannheim University of Music since 2017.

Founded in 1877, the orchestra gave regular concerts as the Duisburg Symphony Orchestra in Duisburg's Mercatorhalle until it was demolished in 2003. It then played in Duisburg's Theater am Marientor. In April 2007, the new Mercatorhalle was completed in the Stadtpalais, where the orchestra has since been based under its new name.