Born in 2007 Colin Pütz studies with Florence Millet at the Cologne University of Music and Dance and holds a scholarship from the International Academy of Music Liechtenstein. He made his debut early on at festivals such as the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Ruhr Piano Festival. In 2024, he gave solo recitals at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and at the Monte Carlo Opera. He caused a sensation at the Rolandseck Music Festival when he stood in for Daniel Barenboim at short notice.

The Prix Serdang was launched in 2022 and awarded to Martin James Bartlett. Ariel Lanyi received the Prix Serdang in 2023 and pianist Alexandra Dovgan in 2024. The candidates are selected by the pianist Rudolf Buchbinder as curator. The choice will be made jointly by Rudolf Buchbinder, Adrian Flury (initiator) and Thomas Pfiffner (project developer). The award ceremony is expected to lead to further promotional measures: For example, all award winners have so far performed at the Grafenegg Festival. There is also a cooperation with the Swiss Orpheum Foundation and the Warner Classics label.

Anisa Djojoatmodjo is a guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. The artist has been based in Winterthur for over ten years. Together with Zurich-based drummer Hannah Bissegger, she founded the duo Ikan Hyu in 2016. Anisa Djojoatmodjo was also active as a "sidewoman" in projects with Evelinn Trouble and Ella Ronen, can be heard in productions at Theater Rigiblick, but is now increasingly concentrating on her own projects.

She has led workshops, including at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) as part of the CAS "Pop" and, for three years now, a band workshop for young Finta people at Helvetiarockt. In 2023, she was a juror for the Aargau Board of Trustees in the field of music, and since 2024 she has been on the Music Commission of the City of Zurich's Popkredit. According to the city of Winterthur, the promotion of women, inter-, non-binary, trans and agender people in the music scene is particularly important to her.

The Cultural Prize of the City of Winterthur is awarded annually by the City Council on its own authority to persons or institutions who have made a special contribution to the cultural life of the City of Winterthur. An application is not possible. Institutions as well as individuals and groups can be honored. The prize is endowed with 10ʼ000 francs.

Lonca succeeds Artem Lonhinov, who is moving to the Fribourg Theater next season. He completed his studies with a master's degree in orchestral conducting at the Haute école de musique de Genève, where he also worked as an assistant professor and conducted the Swiss premiere of Ármin Cservenák's Spring at the 76e Concours de Genève.

Clément Lonca was a regular guest at the Opéra national de Lyon and with the Ensemble Hector Berlioz. He has also worked as a musical assistant at festivals and major venues, such as the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna State Opera, the Theater an der Wien and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. In the 2025/26 season, he will take over the musical direction of Le nozze di Figaro, of the ballet production Carmen and the world premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino's opera L'Agamennone.

Beatrice Berrut was born in Monthey in 1985 and studied music in Sion, Lausanne, Berlin and Dublin. In the course of her varied career, she has worked as a Media release from the canton "with prestigious orchestras and initiated daring projects in which she combined music, dance, astrophysics and even figure skating". She will be working as a composer at the Opéra de Tours in the 25/26 season.

In addition to her work as a concert pianist, Beatrice Berrut is also active as a composer, arranger and artistic director. In 2022, she founded the "Les Ondes" festival in her home town - a format "that aims to make classical music more accessible to a wider audience and build bridges between tradition and contemporary sensibilities".

Estelle Revaz was born in Valais in 1989. According to the press release from Suisseculture is a cellist with an international career and completed her training in Paris, Cologne and Lausanne. She performs regularly in many countries in Europe, Asia and America. As an artist, she became politically active during the Covid period, wrote the book "La Saltimbanque" and has been a member of the National Council since 2023, in particular to represent the interests of cultural workers.

Since her election as a member of the National Council, she has succeeded, according to Suisseculture, in pushing through the issue of social security for cultural professionals as one of the priorities of the legislative period. She has also made it possible to amend the revision of the law on the National Library in favor of creative artists and the media, and she has won her first personal motion for a national strategy to combat poverty.

Revaz will take over the presidency as the first president of Suisseculture from French-speaking Switzerland on October 1, 2025. She will be supported in her future activities by an eleven-member board. Suisseculture is the umbrella organization of professional cultural organizations in Switzerland and Swiss copyright societies.

The team analyzed the listening habits of 2.5 million people in France, Brazil and Germany. They found that the urban population's choice of music is more diverse and individual than that of the rural population.

First, it examined how similar the songs were that were listened to by people in the same region. The analysis of a total of 250 million listening logs revealed this in all three countries: The larger the city, the more individualized the music choices. In large cities, people share fewer musical preferences with their neighbors than in more rural regions. At the same time, the larger the city, the wider the personal listening radius with a broader spectrum of genres and acts.

The personal listening radius also changes over the age range: during adolescence, the variety of music listened to increases rapidly, reaches its peak in the late 20s and then slowly decreases again.

Experts from Germany, France and the United States were involved in the project, including those from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPICBS) in Leipzig, Deezer Research in Paris and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Original publication:
Lee, H., Jacoby, N., Hennequin, R. & Moussallam, M. (2025). Mechanisms of Cultural Diversity in Urban Populations. Nature Communications, 16, 5192. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60538-2

In addition to working with Swiss music greats such as Endo Anaconda, Roman Wyss has produced audio books by Alex Capus and Pedro Lenz, among others, and has written musicals and pop songs. After receiving the City of Olten's sponsorship award in 1995, he has been able to develop his artistic career very successfully, writes the city.

The city of Olten also awarded a sponsorship prize to saxophonist and composer Sara El Hachimi. And event manager and musician Christian Che Dietiker, who has been organizing parties and events for venues such as the Schützi and Galicia for years, received an honorary award.

The provisions for carrying instruments in the aircraft cabin were initiated back in February 2014, but the process then remained in limbo for more than ten years, as the first reading was not subject to a deadline. The dossier has now been reopened at the instigation of the Polish EU Council Presidency.

The Council has now announced its version of the text following its meeting on June 5, 2025. A European regulation can therefore be expected to be adopted soon, granting musicians traveling by plane the right to carry their instrument in the cabin under certain conditions.

Swissperform generated tariff revenue of CHF 62.8 million in 2024. This corresponds to a decrease of CHF 300,000 or 4 per thousand compared to the previous year. According to the press release, radio and TV subscriptions decreased during retransmission, there was a delay in sending out invoices to users for performances and private radio stations recorded a fall in advertising income for broadcasts.

At its Delegates' Meeting, the company explained that its costs and therefore also the administrative cost rate increased. As a percentage of revenue, costs amounted to 11.22% net (previous year: 9.86%) and 14.91% gross (including the collection costs of sister companies) (previous year: 13.70%). The main reason for this development is the increase in Swissperform's costs as a result of ongoing restructuring work.

At the end of 2024, 26,134 members and clients belonged to the association. The increase in 2024 amounted to 1,147 rights holders (4.59%). The largest increase in terms of both numbers and share was recorded by phonographic performers (1,050 / 5.28%). Around CHF 6.3 million was invested in the promotion of cultural and social projects via the affiliated foundations.

Schoch studied Film and Media Music at the Hogeschool van de Kunsten in Arnhem after a preliminary course in film music in Bonn, before completing a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Composition for Film, Theater and Media (FTM) at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). During his studies, he wrote music for ensembles of various sizes, scored several games, wrote a children's musical and composed a 3D radio play.

Andreas Wyss is a music producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist from Olten. He was the bass player in the band Stiller Has and teaches music at a school in Olten.

Zoë Lena Guldimann released her first EP under the artist name Zoey 2024 and is currently studying pop guitar in the Bachelor of Music program at the Zurich University of Music, where she leads her own band.

Sylvie Courvoisier, born in Lausanne in 1968, is "one of the most important pianists and composers on the contemporary jazz scene", writes the Federal Office of Culture (FOC). She has lived in New York since 1998. Courvoisier has created a hybrid world of jazz, contemporary music and improvisation and regularly collaborates with greats such as John Zorn, Mark Feldman, Yusef Lateef, Ikue Mori, Joey Baron and Evan Parker. Her playing style is inspired by Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk as well as the composers György Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen. Following the release of her second solo album To Be Other-Wise (Intakt Records, 2024) and the atmospheric album Chimaera (Intakt Records, 2023) will release the album Angel Falls with Wadada Leo Smith (Intakt Records, 2025).

Swiss Music Prizes, each worth CHF 40,000, go to harpist Julie Campiche, cellist Thomas Demenga, conductor Titus Engel, composer Jannik Giger, experimental musician Charlotte Hug Raschèr, music poet Silvio Brunner and the two music groups Vox Blenii and Vent Negru. Special prizes (CHF 25,000 each) were awarded to the Facciamo la Corte! festival in the Ticino village of Muzzano, the Insub Meta Orchestra and the global network Norient.

The Swiss Music Awards have been in existence since 2014, recognizing outstanding works or individual achievements and reflecting musical creation in Switzerland. On behalf of the Federal Office of Culture, around ten experts from all parts of the country and from various musical disciplines recommend around sixty nominees for the Swiss Music Awards each year. At the beginning of the following year, the seven members of the Federal Jury for Music select eleven prizewinners from the recommendations.

Born in 1973, Jörg Widmann studied clarinet and composition in Munich and at the Juilliard School in New York. He taught clarinet and composition in Freiburg from 2001 to 2015 and has taught composition at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin since 2017. In the 2023/24 season, he was composer-in-residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Several contemporary works have been dedicated to him, including clarinet concertos by Wolfgang Rihm, Aribert Reimann and Mark Andre. In 2009, Widmann was composer-in-residence at the Lucerne Festival in the summer. Most recently, a work commissioned by the festival for viola and chamber orchestra was premiered in summer 2023.

The Lucerne Festival Academy was founded in 2004 by Pierre Boulez and Festival Director Michael Haefliger for the field of contemporary music. Composer Wolfgang Rihm has been the artistic director since 2016. Every summer, over 100 young musicians from around 30 countries devote three weeks to the repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Marketing researchers from the University of Hamburg Business School conducted a representative study of 1518 people in Germany to find out about their listening habits. The result: while users without smart speakers listen to music for an average of around 16 hours per week, people with smart speakers listen for more than 20 hours.

There are also differences in the use of streaming services and paid subscriptions: the proportion of paid services among users of smart speakers is 73 percent and only 39 percent among those who do not own a smart speaker.

Users of smart speakers also appear to prefer the services of their respective speaker manufacturers: for example, 29.3% of people who own an Amazon smart speaker use the company's own paid platform Amazon Music Unlimited. For people without a smart speaker, this figure is just 11.0%. The situation is similar for Google Smart Speaker owners: they use YouTube Music significantly more often than users without a smart speaker (17.3% more).

Original publication:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08997764.2025.2494994

Fiona Stevens studied musicology at Cambridge University, violin in Düsseldorf and historical performance practice in Frankfurt am Main and The Hague. She completed her doctorate at the University of Southampton in 2017. For two years, she experimented with cultural crossover with an agency that organized concerts in unusual places and circumstances for classical music. From October 2021 to September 2024, she was Managing Director of the baroque orchestra Concerto Köln. She is currently a fellow at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, specializing in sustainability and strategic planning for cultural enterprises.

The Basel Sinfonietta is a symphonic orchestra specializing in contemporary music. It has commissioned numerous works and has presented more than 220 world premieres and national premieres since its foundation.

The form of co-management "ideally corresponds to today's management requirements and expectations as well as the culture of cooperation in the field of jazz". The co-management team brings "a wealth of experience within structures in education and culture with its diverse skills in artistic, pedagogical and organizational matters", writes the university.

Michael Beck, internationally active pianist and composer, lecturer in piano and theory at the FHNW Jazz Institute with broad pedagogical experience, curator of event series with many years of cultural-political commitment, Sarah Chaksad saxophonist, bandleader and composer with international concert activities is responsible for educational programs, founder of a label and a concert agency. Drummer Patrik Zosso is an internationally active producer and sound engineer, head of a studio and label, professor of jazz producing and head of the Producing/Performance course at the FHNW Jazz Institute.