New editorial team for the Music Dictionary of Switzerland
The Music Dictionary of Switzerland is entering a new phase with a new editorial team and secured funding - for an up-to-date, multilingual and participative reference work on Swiss music history.
As a reminder, the development of the Music Lexicon of Switzerland (MLS) has a long history that has lasted over ten years. Many hours of voluntary work were put into this project by a small team of musicologists and historians, motivated by the idea that Switzerland finally needs an up-to-date (online) music lexicon. However, it was difficult for a long time to find the necessary funding to offer a user-friendly online platform for the encyclopaedia's users on the one hand and to establish a professional editorial team on the other. Since the beginning of 2025, the MLS has received start-up funding from most of Switzerland's cantons as well as special support from generous sponsors and the Canton of Geneva to finance its own project. The Geneva project is intended to serve as an example and demonstrate how the music lexicon presents the musical history of a region. These contributions have made it possible to recruit staff for a professional editorial team from spring/summer this year: Cla Mathieu for the German-language editorial team; Sandra Tinner for the French-language editorial team; IrèneMinder-Jeanneret for editing the articles of the Geneva project; Caiti Hauck as editorial coordinator.
The MLS also focuses on cultural participation, as it encourages and empowers groups and individuals to write articles by name about people or institutions that the writers (still) knew personally. The editorial team ensures that all writers receive professional support.
The MLS constituted itself as an independent association in 2024 and has been a section of the SMG ever since. Since 2022, the MLS has also been a board of trustees of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences.
