Swiss music academies and choral associations
As part of Switzerland's tertiary music education landscape, the Swiss Universities of Music (HEM) play a central role in the training of professional musicians. At the heart of this dynamic lies a highly interesting link with the fabric of amateur choir associations.
The commitment and creativity of HEM students and alumni are interwoven with the passion of amateur choristers, contributing to the vitality and richness of the Swiss musical landscape, highlighting the extraordinarily rich regional roots of Swiss amateur choirs and the links that bind them to the country's HEMs.
Outstanding regional roots for enhanced employability
By international standards, Switzerland boasts a remarkable density of choirs. According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, there are almost 2,000 non-professional choirs in the country, with cantonal concentrations sometimes very high (for example, one out of every thirty-five inhabitants of Fribourg is a choir member). In this favorable environment, interactions are naturally created between the HEMs and the fabric of amateur choir associations. Firmly rooted in local communities, their sheer numbers create an impressive cultural network that extends across the whole country, and their deep involvement in society contributes to a dense and diversified musical fabric in which HEMs play a part.
Indeed, HEM students and alumni are a crucial element in this form of partnership. Their professional training, combined with their commitment to the service of music, enriches the ranks of amateur choirs by bringing a high level of musical competence and a thorough understanding of music. In return, the choirs' commitments to instrumentalists, conductors and singers provide valuable career opportunities.
According to Emmanuel Junod, co-founder of Geneva-based vocal ensemble Pierre de Lune and conductor of the choir: "HEM alumni and students bring indispensable skills to our vocal training. Their musical expertise raises our level of performance and enables us to give concerts of even higher quality, both for the audience and for the vocal ensemble's amateur choristers, who often feel inspired by these reinforcements and soloists."
One thing all (higher) music schools have in common
Far from being an isolated phenomenon, the link between Swiss HEMs and the amateur choral milieu is a common thread that unites all the country's (higher) music schools. Each institution recognizes the importance of this symbiosis for Swiss musical culture as a whole, and virtually all of them - from the local music school to the cantonal conservatory to the HEM - offer courses that help to nurture and enliven this national cultural wealth.
As far as the HEMs are concerned, this translates into a wide range of Bachelor's, Master's and continuing education courses, whether in choral conducting, church music, early music or contemporary music, or in project management and training for instrumentalists and singers. Collaboration with amateur choirs is also an integral part of the teaching programs, particularly in terms of musical mediation and the development of the musician's role in and for society.
Emmanuel Junod's concluding words echo these elements: "My background is in Music and Musicology, so I was trained as a professional musician, but today I see myself as a free electron, able to bring together different people from both the HEM and the world of enlightened amateurs. All the efforts made to strengthen the average musical culture of the Swiss population, in order to renew and even expand the number of people with a taste for a demanding form of music that constitutes our common heritage, is part of the DNA of our country, which is distinguished from others by this very fabric.
exceptional choral music.
