Baldur Brönnimann & Felix Heri introduce Between Mountains Pageant

This summer season, the Between Mountains Pageant makes its debut on 19 July at Holdenweid in Hölstein, Switzerland. Extra than simply one other music competition, Between Mountains seeks to redefine how classical music is offered and skilled by bringing it into dialog with digital, ambient, and experimental genres. Set in opposition to the distinctive backdrop of a former psychiatric facility turned cultural centre on the foothills of the Jura Mountains, the competition appeals to curious audiences occupied with a special classical musical expertise.

The competition is the imaginative and prescient of conductor Baldur Brönnimann and cultural supervisor Felix Heri. Longtime collaborators with a shared mission to problem conventional classical live performance codecs, Baldur and Felix have created Between Mountains to bridge divides – between genres, audiences, and generations – and to foster a brand new type of musical group in Switzerland. Drawing inspiration from Germany’s Detect Basic Pageant, they’ve tailor-made this challenge to resonate with native artists and listeners whereas sustaining a spirit of experimentation and openness.

On this interview, we converse with Baldur Brönnimann and Felix Heri in regards to the origins of the competition, their ambitions for altering classical music’s cultural panorama, and the way Between Mountains invitations audiences to come across music in surprising methods.

How did the thought for Between Mountains Pageant first come about? What impressed you to create a brand new type of music gathering in Switzerland?

Baldur & Felix: We labored collectively for years, sharing the philosophy of breaking apart the classical music live performance codecs and bringing them in tune with Twenty first-century audiences and Twenty first-century listening habits. We labored collectively as a chief exec and as a principal conductor at Basel Sinfonietta, and from that point, we all the time tried to current classical music in surprising and non-traditional methods, as a result of we felt that the format typically stood in the best way of building a direct relationship between the listener and the music.

Baldur: In 2021, I labored on the Detect Pageant in Germany with the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie, and I believed this competition was actually an fascinating idea. It was a competition that had a youthful viewers who had been searching for an awesome musical expertise with out the formalities of a conventional classical live performance.

Then, once I gained the tradition prize of Baselland in 2023, we began to speak to the area about beginning a brand new classical occasion for brand new audiences. And there was a political curiosity. That is after we first had the thought to convey the idea of Detect to Switzerland. We checked out a number of areas, however lastly, Holstein was the perfect place to attempt to make our first competition work.

Baldur & Felix: A key idea of the Between Mountain festivals is the facet of not simply staging an annual occasion, however making a competition that leaves a hint within the area. One thing that helps the native musical ecosystem. We give younger Swiss artists a platform. We work with a younger native chamber orchestra and hope to assist the group to develop and to create one thing sustainable in the course of the yr, past the weekend of the competition itself. We hope “Between Mountains” shall be a constructive issue within the musical panorama round Basel, create a sure identification and resonance with the native collectives. And we wish to give the native artists a platform for his or her creative future.

The title Between Mountains feels each literal and symbolic. How did you arrive at it? Is it purely geographical, or does it mirror a deeper facet of the competition’s imaginative and prescient?

Baldur & Felix: Switzerland is without doubt one of the nations with the best density of music festivals on the earth. However we needed to provide this competition a totally completely different really feel, as a result of we felt that many classical music festivals cater to a conventional classical viewers, and that there’s a younger, curious public that would not go to Gstaad, Lucerne, or Verbier, as a result of they need a special musical and dwell expertise.

On the one hand, Between Mountains is clearly type of a geographic definition. It is outside, it is in Switzerland, and so forth. Nevertheless it’s additionally one thing symbolic, as a result of as a Swiss, one is aware of that one can all the time climb up the mountains, however one has to come back down once more. So in between the mountains, that is the place the persons are. And that is the place we needed to be with our competition.

You’ve got talked about that Between Mountains goals to “break down boundaries round classical music and redefine the way it’s skilled”. What particular boundaries do you determine, and the way is the competition designed to dismantle them?

Baldur: I have been working for 25 years professionally within the subject of classical music. And I understand that there’s a hole between the curiosity in classical music and the viewers that basically involves live shows.

Between 20 or 30 % of individuals on Spotify will take heed to some type of classical music at some stage, or could have classical music as a part of their listening habits. However simply perhaps one or two % of the viewers will ever go to a dwell classical live performance. So this clearly tells us that there’s something within the live performance format that we now have to consider.

I by no means heard anyone say that they do not like Mozart or they do not like Rossini or Philip Glass. However some individuals do not. They really feel that the normal live performance format shouldn’t be proper for them. That’s partly all the way down to a historical past of synthetic, elitist, and educational boundaries that go on even at this time, and that hold individuals from experiencing classical music in a democratic, pleasant, and stimulating method.

And these are the sorts of boundaries that we needed to eradicate. What one calls custom, fairly often in classical music, has modified rather a lot through the years. Initially of the nineteenth century, many orchestras used to play standing up, conductors used to face the viewers. Folks used to clap every time. Generally individuals would eat and drink throughout live shows. And these guidelines modified over time, repeatedly and once more, due to altering social conventions and listening habits.

However Felix and I felt that, in Twenty first-century classical music, we’re nonetheless very a lot caught previously: typically unintelligible program texts, unquestioned guidelines and codes in classical live shows, or simply merely a sense of not belonging.

We needed to create another method individuals can encounter classical music: in surprising locations, in the midst of the evening, in a forest, sharing the expertise with mates and blurring the boundaries between life and musical expertise.

Given the variety of genres in this system, how do you outline classical music throughout the context of Between Mountains? Are you making an attempt to broaden its definition, or is it extra about presenting it in new and surprising methods?

Baldur & Felix: What we’re searching for is presenting music in new and surprising methods. What we current is… one of the best historic and new music. We play Mozart, Grieg, Haydn, but additionally music by dwelling composers, Twentieth-century music, Twenty first-century music. However what is actually completely different is the best way it is being offered. We short-circuit the normal classical music format and convey the good classical masters in contact with different musical genres.

How do you strategy choosing classical musicians for the competition? What qualities or approaches do you search for in artists?

Baldur & Felix: We choose artists from the goal group of our audiences as a result of we wish to create this identification with classical artists. We additionally choose artists which have a wider curiosity than perhaps some extra historically centered artists. So we search for individuals who would match with and perceive the idea of “Between Mountains.” And we additionally search for individuals who have a broad aesthetic horizon, who’re occupied with wanting additional than the usual repertoire and have an unmistakable creative profile. And naturally, we search for native artists as a result of we wish to ensure they create this id of the competition. 

Do you see the digital and experimental artists on the line-up performing as a gateway for brand new audiences to find or re-engage with classical music? How do you facilitate that cross-genre discovery throughout the competition?

Baldur & Felix: The classical and digital artists that we current share a standard trait: they discover the boundaries of their musical genres. They’re wanting to broaden, curious, typically experimental, they usually cater to a musically various viewers. That’s the place I really feel classical music and different genres like digital music have a synergy: they share an analogous viewers.

We wish to ship the message that if you wish to hear fascinating music, then “Between Mountains” is the place to be, since you’ll expertise nice artists and nice music, whatever the style. In that sense, we alternate digital and classical acts in a totally spontaneous method, aiming for individuals to make completely no distinction between the sorts of music they take heed to, however merely expertise it as one unified occasion.

A former psychiatric facility remodeled right into a inventive sanctuary is kind of a novel setting for a competition. How did you uncover Holdenweid, and what initially drew you to this explicit property as the house for Between Mountains?

Baldur & Felix:  We had been searching for an uncommon venue, initially, one that might give us the chance to play each outside and indoors, and likewise one thing utterly off the crushed monitor. We discovered that we had rather a lot in widespread with the people who find themselves changing the previous psychiatric facility in Hölstein right into a cultural centre, as a result of we share many values concerning sustainability, transformation, respecting the setting, and so forth.

We visited a number of venues, however Holdenweide was particular. With the concepts of the individuals behind the transformation of Holdenweide, we might create one thing significant collectively. We had been searching for a companion, they usually understood what we had in thoughts with Between Mountains. There was a primary understanding from the very starting. That is how this competition in the end ended up right here.

What would you inform a classical music lover who’s hesitant about digital music to encourage them to come back?

Baldur & Felix: We’d say, when you’re occupied with good music, it’s best to come to Holdenweide. It’s not simply the music itself; you’ll share this second with many different people who find themselves curious listeners and who additionally desire a barely completely different expertise. Should you wish to be stunned and are open to new musical and aesthetic experiences, “Between Mountains” is the place to go.

Between Mountains Pageant – 19 July 2025, additional particulars.