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.

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.