Swiss Music in an Extraordinary Situation

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, musicians everywhere are confronted with an extraordinary situation. This is no different for the extensive Swiss artist community. Here’s a selection of activities, campaigns and projects launched to alleviate the multiple-hardships of no more gigs, no more audiences, no more merch tables, and no more social life.

swissmusic.ch – stay at home and listen to Swiss Music
Run jointly by Fondation SUISA and the national Swiss arts support fund, Pro Helvetia, this platform brings together – without any claims to comprehensiveness – information about the most important organisations and artists in Swiss music and their Covid-19-related online initiatives.

Pro Helvetia info point networking platform
The quickest route to the latest information about developments within the arts sector. Artists and any kind of support organisation are most welcome to contribute.

FCMA
The FCMA website contains information mainly focused on the French Swiss music scene. Musique+, the fund to support the development of Contemporary Music projects, continues to operate more or less normally. A telephone helpline has been set up for questions to do with application criteria, documents, or on-going projects.

Sonart
The Association of Music Professionals Switzerland is a comprehensive source of news to do with all things Covid-19 and the arts and music world, including the latest rules of engagement and work/funding opportunities.

Stage at Home
„Stage At Home“ is a live stage for home, supports the Bernese cultural scene with a platform financed by „Couchpotatoes“. Every Friday evening, a concert stream produced in the „Gaskessel“ venue is broadcasted, with the goal to pay out the participating cultural workers fairly with donations. Culture has its value, „Stage At Home“ creates the stage for it.

Other Music Lucerne – Streaming is Caring
Starting on 20 March, the Lucerne-based arts magazine 041 in cooperation with various local arts institutions has been presenting a daily programme of live music, plus shortish contributions to do with theatre, art, literature, and film, via its Facebook and Instagram platforms. The sessions start at 20:30.

RFV Basel
Launched under the umbrella of RFV Basel, “Gärn gschee”(“pleasure to oblige”) is a weekly series of live events featuring the likes of Evelinn Trouble, Manuel Gagneux (Zeal & Ardor), and Anna Aaron, broadcast via Facebook and YouTube. The first show by Manuel Gagneux attracted nearly 3000 viewers. The money raised goes to the musicians or a project nominated by the artists (in the case of Gagneux, sFr. 3000.- was raised for Kulturklinik).

Radio Couleur 3 – Session Pyjama
Radio Couleur 3 – the pop/rock/anything goes-channel of the national radio station of the french speaking part of Switzerland – invites artists of all kinds to send in short live videos from their home sessions.

Radio SRF
The national Swiss radio station in the german part of Switzerland, SRF, has reacted to the special circumstances by playing a massively increased ratio of Swiss music throughout all its programmes. On radio SRF 3, from midnight until the start of live programming the next morning, all music played is of Swiss origin, making it ideal to catch up with Swiss music for anyone tuning in from time zones on the other side of the world.

Radio SRF Virus
Virus is a channel run by the German-language section of SRF, aimed at young urban/pop listeners. In support of the local music scene, Virus has been playing exclusively Swiss-produced music in their daytime programmes since 23 March (only their specialist genre programmes in the evening are allowed the odd exception).

Radio RTR
RTR is the national channel aimed at any speakers of the fourth official language in Switzerland, Rumantsch. Here, too, musicians are invited to contribute recordings of their home concerts. Chiara and Pascal Gamboni were the first to seize the opportunity.

“Alles wird gut” Project
“Everything will be alright” was initiated by three popular figures in Swiss public life, Loco Escrito (a reggaeton artist with an album, “Estoy bien”, recently at number one in the pop charts), Seven (the crowd-pleasing funkateer), and Nik Hartmann, the radio and television presenter. Starting at 12:00, the trio presided over a twenty-four-hour nonstop home-live-music show, broadcast on SRF television and radio as well as a number of private radio and television stations, plus a live stream. The show attracted viewers in more than eighty countries!

Needless to say, we also have the choice of plenty of playlists to help make our exile from real life more bearable. Here’s a handful to start off with:

#zürilove Playlist
City of Zurich’s Popkredit promotes creative work in the field of jazz, rock and pop music and in the intermediate musical areas. Inspired by the Popkredit the #zürilove Playlist serves up a varied selection of rarely obvious nuggets of music created in Zurich, including Pablo Nouvelle, Ephrem Lüchinger, Kalabrese and District Five.

Ane Hebeisen «My ultimate Swiss music collection»
Ane is one of the most popular music journalists writing for the daily press in Switzerland. His extensive selection of Swiss music ranges from the evergreen (Hertz, Sens Unik, Grauzone) via the well-known (Sophie Hunger, Young Gods, Züri West) and lesser heard delights (Carlos Peron, Tim & Puma Mimi, The Weyers) to his own band, Da Cruz (and why not).

And, of course, our very own Swiss Music Export playlist
Don’t miss this – it’s choc-a-bloc full of the stuff we like to recommend, including Lord Kesseli, Laskaar, Coilguns, Camilla Sparksss, L’Eclair, Tim Freitag, and many, many more.

This is of course only a selection from the many exciting projects that have been created in recent weeks – please let us know if we have forgotten a thrilling project.

And: Stay home, listen to music, and stay healthy!