The two were selected from a field of six by public vote. The Emmerich Smola Orchestra Prize of the German Radio Philharmonic 2025 was also awarded to Chelsea Zurflüh. The City of Landau and Sparkasse Südpfalz will award the two of them 20,000 euros as part of the 20th SWR Young Opera Stars Concert. As the winner of the orchestra prize, Chelsea Zurflüh will also be invited to perform with the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra next season.

Born in 1995 in Switzerland with roots in the Seychelles, she completed her Master's degree in Specialized Music Performance Opera with Barbara Locher in Bern in 2021 with top marks. She attended masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Michelle Wegwart, Hedwig Fassbender, Eytan Pessen and Malcolm Walker. From 2021 to 2023 she was a member of the Zurich International Opera Studio.

Vicent was born in Altea, a city in the Valencian Community region of Spain, and studied at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Alicante and the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. Since 2015/16, Josep Vicent has been artistic and musical director of ADDA (Auditorio de Diputación de Alicante) and chief conductor of ADDA Simfònica Alicante. He has worked with personalities such as Maria João Pires, the Labèque Sisters, Pinchas Zukerman, Anna Fedorova, Paquito D'Rivera, Miura, Ramón Vargas and Iréne Theorin.

Founded in 1963 as the Aargau Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra has been based in the Alte Reithalle Aarau since October 2021. From 2001 to 2019, the British conductor Douglas Bostock led the orchestra as chief conductor. The Norwegian Rune Bergmann has been chief conductor since the 2020/21 season.

On site, ZHdK students from Cast/Audiovisual Media will develop social media content under the guidance of the ESC Public Value team. The aim is to showcase the social added value of the ESC. The collaboration offers the young talents a platform to showcase their creativity and innovative strength, to learn in a practice-oriented way and at the same time to participate in one of the biggest entertainment events in the world. It is "a unique opportunity to gain valuable professional experience and showcase Switzerland's creative energy on the global stage", writes the ZHdK.

The ESC final will take place on May 17, 2025 in the St. Jakobshalle in Basel and will be watched by more than 160 million viewers worldwide.

According to the university, the aim is to integrate gender and intersectionality aspects into elementary music pedagogy as well as instrumental and vocal pedagogy. This professorship is intended to train teachers to work against gender stereotypes at an early stage and facilitate access to musical professions for all genders.

A look at orchestral practice shows that more men play brass instruments, while it is predominantly women who play the harp: The professorship is intended to train teachers who, among other things, work against gender stereotypes at an early stage in order to break such patterns. At the same time, the aim is to help break down gender-specific barriers that would prevent young people from pursuing a career in music. This is an important step against the lack of young talent in music-related professions.

In 2024, over 236 billion streams were measured in Germany, eleven percent more than in 2023. 108 billion streams were registered in 2019. Current songs are particularly popular with music fans. Productions from the 2020s increased their streaming share from 52% to 56% within a year. German-language acts such as Ayliva, Luciano and Nina Chuba are particularly popular. They account for eight of the ten most-streamed songs of the decade.

Music from the 2010s accounts for 26 percent of all streams, while the 2000s remain unchanged at eight percent. The decades before that together account for ten percent. By releasing new music, artists such as Linkin Park and Taylor Swift also increased interest in their older tracks. In addition, classics such as Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)" or "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey experienced a second spring.

One of the streaming genres with the highest growth rates is German-language pop. This grew by 15 percent compared to the previous year. Country (up 58%) and folk (up 26%) saw even stronger growth, driven by acts such as Beyoncé, Dasha, Shaboozey and Hozier. The children's radio plays and children's music segment was also up significantly, increasing by 19 percent.

The special analysis by GfK Entertainment in cooperation with the German Music Industry Association (BVMI) was based on paid and ad-based streams lasting 31 seconds or longer for the period from January to December 2024.

According to the festival, the study shows that it generates an annual economic value contribution of around CHF 45 to 50 million for the Lucerne region and thus creates around 230 to 270 jobs. The study also shows that the Lucerne Festival generates "significant social benefits that contribute significantly to the cultural and economic development of the region". For example, a festival visitor who stays overnight in the region stays twice as long as a regular tourist.

The impact study was conducted by McKinsey. According to the Lucerne Festival, it is based on detailed visitor surveys with more than 2,000 people, press documentation and data from Lucerne Statistics (LUSTAT), Lucerne Tourism, the University of St. Gallen (HSG), the Swiss National Bank (SNB), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other sources. It is based on figures from the festival in 2023, which were supplemented with data from 2024.

Bettina Meyer studied stage and costume design at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since 1995 she has been designing stage sets/spatial concepts and costumes for spoken and musical theater and developing her own installation projects. She works at major German-speaking and European theaters and opera houses.

Between 2009 and 2019, she was head of set design at Schauspielhaus Zürich. She taught as a visiting professor of scenography at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts and held teaching positions at Berlin University of the Arts, ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts) and the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel.

The trial was approved for classes focusing on art and sport. It is limited to four years. The classes are aimed at particularly talented pupils in these areas. While the overall demand for this course remains high, the number of pupils specializing in music is declining, writes the canton of Thurgau.

One reason for this may be that these pupils are required to attend instrumental lessons at the Winterthur Conservatory. This usually leads to a change of instrumental teacher. Feedback has shown that this is an obstacle for many pupils to join the KuS class. They would like to keep their previous instrumental teacher, at least at the beginning of their secondary school education.

By approving a school trial, the cantonal government is taking this concern into account: pupils should be able to choose their own instrumental teacher during the first two years of education in the KuS class. The school trial is limited to four years and will run from the 2025/2026 school year, after which it will be reviewed whether the measure has had the desired effect and whether the number of pupils specializing in music has actually increased.

According to the federal government's press release, ten cantons are still in the process of setting up the program. The two-year pilot phase has thus been successfully completed. The program is now in the consolidation phase.

672 of the sponsored talents are male, 517 female, 1 diverse. The ages of the children and young people range from 4 to 25. 972 young musicians are active in the field of classical music, 207 perform jazz, pop, rock and contemporary music, and 11 are active in folk music.

The "Young Talents in Music" funding programme, which was developed by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) from 2021 in collaboration with the cantons, municipalities, cities and music organizations, aims to provide sustainable support for children and young people with above-average musical potential in line with their needs.

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Ayla Erduran was born in Istanbul in 1934, studied with the Hungarian virtuoso Karl Berger, was considered a child prodigy and gave one of her first public performances at the age of 11. Further training followed from 1946 at the Paris Conservatory and in the USA, where Ivan Galamian and Zino Francescatti were among her teachers. She was also mentored by David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory.

Erduran's international career has taken her through Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. She has performed with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Berlin RIAS, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Turkish State Orchestra.

After working in Switzerland, Erduran returned to Istanbul. In addition to her status as a Turkish state artist, she received the Harriet Cohen Olga Verney Award in 1964 and the Beethoven Award of the Netherlands in 1970.

Lea Gersl is a graduate of the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts) MAS program in Clinical Music Therapy. She was recognized for her Master's thesis submitted in June 2024 with the title Music therapy in the mainstream school. Children with externalizing and internalizing behavioural problems in music therapy excellent.

In it, Gersl sheds light on music therapy interventions and the development of children's expressive and communicative behavior. The study is embedded in an international research project and draws on the promotion of research networking by Sandra Lutz Hochreutener, the former head of the study program and mentor of the work.

The manuscript had probably been in the hands of the Petschek family in Aussig (Czech Republic) since the 1920s. As Jews, the Petscheks were persecuted by the Nazis and left their home in 1938. Their furniture, valuables and art collection were confiscated by the Nazi authorities. When the German authorities began to dispose of the art collection in 1942, the head of the music collection of the Moravian Museum in Brno, who was called in as an expert, managed to secure the manuscript for the museum.

After the war, the Petschek family searched for the manuscript - initially without success. When it was finally found, the communist government of what was then Czechoslovakia refused to hand over the autograph. In 2022, it was restituted to the Petschek descendants, who agreed to sell the manuscript to the Beethoven-Haus at the end of 2024 and make it permanently accessible to the public and researchers once again.

The purchase was made possible by a concerted campaign of public and private supporters. In addition to the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the NRW-Stiftung, the Kunststiftung NRW, the Berthold Leibinger-Stiftung as well as committed private donors and the Beethoven-Haus Foundation were involved.

Antoine Torunczyk studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Lyon with Michel Henry and at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam with Alfredo Bernardini. He graduated in 2000 and in the same year won first prize at the Baroque Oboe Competition in Halle, Germany. He is currently principal oboist of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Concerto Copenhagen, and works with leading historically informed orchestras throughout Europe.

An active chamber musician, he is also co-founder of the Assemblée des Honnestes Curieux, winner of the Premio Bomporti Early Music Competition in Rovereto (Italy), and the baroque ensemble D!ssonanti, together with Sébastien Marq, Amandine Beyer, Javier Zafra, Tami Troman and Chiaopin Kuo.

He currently teaches historical oboe in the Early Music Department of the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMdP) and also annually at the Vielklang Summer Academy in Tübingen. He is webmaster of the Hautboy Companionan educational website about the historical oboe.

The The jury decided to award the project "Solo Brodo (Primordio e Parsimonia)" by interdisciplinary performance artist and musician Rebecca Solari, who lives in Biel, with 10,000 francs. The artist sheds light on her mother tongue - a Ticino dialect from the Blenio Valley - with her cultural language French, addressing the question of how people can communicate without speaking the same language. In general, her work deals with virulent contemporary issues such as identity and social norms.

The jury also awarded the Academy for Contemporary Music Switzerland 5,000 francs. The prize money will be used to support a bilingual music camp organized by the Academy, which will take place in Schwarzsee in August 2025. The musicians of "La Gustav" and the young people and children of "La Marlene", two projects of the academy, will rehearse across language and age boundaries for a performance at the 3rd "Lac Noir Schwarzsee Festival".

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Vollenwyder will step down as Chairman of the Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zürich AG at the Annual General Meeting on January 29, 2025 after eleven years. Hedy Graber, who headed the Society & Culture Directorate at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives for over 20 years until fall 2024, is standing for election by shareholders as President.

The Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zürich is a public limited company and the sponsor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. The honorary Board of Directors is made up of twelve members, five of whom are representatives of the City and Canton of Zurich and two of whom are staff representatives.