The SZ Advent Calendar promotes freelance musicians – Munich

Music makes people happy. No wonder that a starved audience is currently crowding into the concert halls after almost two Corona years. Music can finally be experienced live on stage again. There will be special moments of happiness on November 26th in the Isarphilharmonie, when the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor-designate Simon Rattle will play Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony – as a benefit concert in favor of the Advent calendar for good works by Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The joy of the reawakening of musical life must not hide the havoc the times of the corona lockdown have wreaked in Germany’s cultural landscape. Freelance musicians are particularly hard hit. Surveys show that the majority of them have long since ceased to find a livelihood in professional music-making and have inevitably taken up another profession or had to look for new activities. Many musicians could only survive with financial aid.

The funding is tied to strict criteria such as high artistic quality

That is why the advent calendar promotes the Süddeutsche Zeitung Also this year two organizations that support freelance artists in times of the pandemic: the German Orchestra Foundation (DOS) and the International Foundation for the Promotion of Culture and Civilization. Because the advent calendar is at home in Munich and the surrounding area, it focuses its donations on Bavaria.

The German Orchestra Foundation started its nationwide donation campaign #MusikerNothilfe in March 2020. Artists of all genres – classical, rock, pop and jazz – should receive financial aid as soon as possible, in places where the state does not usually grant funding. Around 5.5 million euros were raised by September 2021, which were initially paid out as emergency aid and soon as tax-free scholarships. More than 5000 freelance musicians, according to the foundation, received financial support.

And the help continues. The #MusikerNotilfe has been running since October 6, according to Gerald Mertens, Chairman of the DOS Board of Trustees. Applications for the new #MusikerZukunft scholarship program can be submitted from spring 2022. This is aimed at professionally working musicians, but also master’s students and ensembles. The funding is tied to strict criteria. What is required is “high artistic quality, proven, for example, by participating in or winning music competitions.” In addition, the need must be proven by submitting the income tax assessment. Per artist, support of up to 6,000 euros per year is possible for a maximum of two seasons.

The International Foundation for the Promotion of Culture and Civilization, founded by the entrepreneur Erich Fischer, takes a slightly different path. Your support benefits schoolchildren and older people, but also musicians. The foundation organizes concerts and music lessons in retirement homes. This “Music in the Afternoon” series proved to be a refreshment for home residents in many parts of Germany in Corona times.

Last year there was an opera workshop for the music center in the middle school in Eching, which is also supported by the SZ advent calendar.

(Photo: Katrin Masius)

The foundation also organizes workshops and concerts at numerous schools. There are also regular choir and piano lessons at 17 selected secondary schools, most of them in Bavaria. Making music gives the students self-esteem and self-confidence, says Thomas Schütz, a baritone and music teacher trained in Cologne and London who works as a “specialist choir” for the foundation and gives choir lessons at schools.

The result is remarkable: throughout Germany in the 2020 corona year, “Music in the Afternoon” was heard more than 900 times in nursing homes. This year there should be at least as many appearances. There is also a full program for schoolchildren until the end of the year – there should be 140 concerts and workshops. In addition, around 700 students receive regular piano and choir lessons.

The author Hendrik Munsberg is co-chair of the Advent calendar for good works of the Süddeutsche Zeitung

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