Swiss National Sound Archives: new projects
The National Sound Archives, an institution for the preservation of Switzerland's cultural identity. New projects to enhance the value of our sounding cultural heritage.
The Swiss National Sound Archives was founded in 1987, is based in Lugano and has been a department of the Swiss National Library since 2016. Its mission is to collect, preserve and make accessible to the public all audio material related to Switzerland in the fields of music (classical, folk, jazz, pop and rock), language (interviews, readings, lectures...) and sounds (natural sounds, ambient sounds...). In this sense, the Fonoteca contributes to the preservation of Switzerland's cultural identity.
Today, the Fonoteca, with its 25 employees, is an important international center of excellence specializing in the preservation and documentation of audiovisual media. The Fonoteca's archives currently contain around 600,000 sound carriers in all formats (wax cylinders, tapes, cassettes, vinyl records, etc.). Over 300,000 of these are already recorded in the database and can therefore be consulted in the online catalog of the National Sound Archives (www.fonoteca.ch). Over 100,000 of these sound carriers have already been digitized and can therefore be listened to in the online catalog, which corresponds to almost one million audio tracks: these already digitized sound documents can be listened to throughout Switzerland at the «listening stations» that the Fonoteca has set up in around fifty public institutions such as cantonal libraries, universities and music academies (see the list of «listening stations» at www.fonoteca.ch/services/listeningPoints_de.htm).
New projects: Exclusive interviews available online
Over the course of 2026, the Swiss National Sound Archives will be launching a number of new projects to enhance our audio heritage. One of these is the publication of exclusive interviews with great personalities of classical music from Switzerland and abroad. The interviews will be conducted in the Fonoteca's recording studios by Gabriele Cerilli, the member of staff responsible for classical music.
The first interview is with Fritz Näf, an important Swiss choral conductor. As the founder of the «Basler Madrigalisten» and the «Schweizer Kammerchor», he spoke about his musical career and the state of choral music today.
The second interview is with Giorgio Appolonia and Giuseppe Clericetti, two historic voices of RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera. As long-time producers and journalists, they have tackled the sensitive issue of the importance of «recorded» music and its future.
Two more interviews are in preparation and will be published from January 2026. The first is with Carlo Chiarappa, a well-known violinist and long-time lecturer at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. He told us about his work to rediscover baroque music and his research into contemporary music, thanks also to his long-standing collaboration with Luciano Berio.
The second interview is with the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. She was a student of the famous Swiss pedagogue Aida Stucki for several years and told us about her studies and the importance of these years for her future concert career, as well as some interesting reflections on her work as a teacher and the current state of classical music. Some of these interviews can already be viewed and listened to in the online catalog or on the National Sound Archives' YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@swissnationalsoundarchives).
