Digitization - but how?

Philippe Krüttli opened the first Delegates' Meeting that he chaired with an insight into the activities of the VMS Board over the past six months - and an outlook on the goals and projects for the coming years. Both the 2023 budget and the concept for the structure of membership fees from 2024 were approved by the delegates present. The latter had been accompanied by a working group of delegates this year and sent out for consultation in all cantons. VMS Board member Thomas Saxer reported positive feedback from a majority of the cantonal associations, as well as critical comments that were successfully incorporated into the concept. The concept, which was unanimously approved by the delegates with the exception of one abstention, will be implemented from 2024. Philippe Krüttli expressed his sincere thanks for the careful examination of the concept in the cantons and for the trust placed in the Executive Board.

Philippe Krüttli then reported on the status of the federal "Young Talents in Music" program. As a reminder, cantons with a funding program that complies with the guidelines of the Federal Ordinance have been able to submit applications for financial aid on the Federal Office of Culture's platform for support contributions since August 2022. Over the past six months, experts from music associations and organizations have been commissioned by the Federal Office of Culture to develop evaluation and measurement criteria for the cantonal commissions. This has resulted in three documents: one each for folk music and pop/rock/jazz as well as for classical music and wind music (the latter adopting the criteria for classical music). The evaluation guidelines will be available on the FOC website from January 2023.

At the end of the morning, Thomas Saxer reported on the "quarte Open Label". He was delighted to present Stewy von Wattenwyl, principal of the Swiss Jazz School in Bern - the very first jazz school in Europe, founded in 1967 - with the 2022 certificate.

In the afternoon, attendees turned their attention to digitalization. Dr. Richard-Emmanuel Eastes from the Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale (HES-So), who is already very familiar with the world of music education thanks to a presentation at last year's Conférence romande and two workshops with the VMS Board, presented his theoretical and practical thoughts on digital change. The following guiding principles, among others, are central to him: Digitalization is not an end in itself - and it must meet a real need. Nevertheless, he considers it very important to deal with the profound social change in order to equip students with appropriate reflection skills and to prepare them and themselves for a changed world of work.

The delegates then discussed the needs of music schools in terms of digitality in depth. The aim of the workshop was to find out to what extent the VMS can best support the cantonal associations in this area - and which tool (concept? guidelines? manifesto?) would be suitable for this. The participants voted on possible title ideas for this document using a QR code on their smartphones. "This open and constructive discussion provides the Board with very valuable information for the continuation of the work on digital change," said Philipp Krüttli. He dismissed the delegates punctually at 4 p.m. with a heartfelt thank you.