Facilitators
The Career Advancement Program’s facililtators consist of internationally accomplished personalities in their fields, be it music management, public relations, law, and many others. They support, lecture and guide the beneficiaries throughout the duration of their participation in the Career Advancement Program.
Roger Cahn† was born 1948 in Zurich. After his studies of French literature, History and Comparative Literature, which resulted in a PhD in French Literature, he worked for 30 years as a journalist. His topics were literature, music and general cultural subjects. In 2000, he founded his own company, which was a consultancy for cultural and economic establishments. His aim was to create partnerships between. In his last years of live, he also focused young artists and successful career development. Throughout his professional life Roger Cahn was a well- liked lecturer, mentor to many, and spirited friend of the arts.
Thomas Pfiffner was born in 1965 and after finishing his degree in piano performance he started working for the Basel Chamber Orchestra (back then Serenata Basel). In his further career he was program director of the recording label pan classics, managing director of the Basel Musik Forum and recording manager of the Basel Symphony Orchestra. From 1996 to 2005 he was managing director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and from 2005 to 2014 he was managing director and artistic director of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. Since 2014 Thomas Pfiffner is managing director of the Orpheum Foundation in Zurich.
Besides that he is artistic director of the concert series Meisterzyklus Bern and together with Oliver Schnyder and Fränzi Frick he is responsible for the Piano District concert series and the Lenzburgiade Festival. 2017 to 2020 he was in charge of the international relations of the St. Gallen J. S. Bach Foundation. Since 2018 he has been in charge of the Villa Serdang concert series, and in 2022 he created the "Prix Serdang" for this institution. Between 1997 and 2016 he was a member of the Fondation Suisa and its acting president since 2014.
WEBSITE | orpheum.ch
Artistic and strategic consultant Andreas Vierziger collaborates internationally with concert presenters, festivals, orchestras, record labels, educational institutions and other partners across the classical music business and beyond.
As a former artist manager he worked with artists of highest international acclaim including GRAMMY winners and he was a board member of Camerata Salzburg. He judged more than 20 international music competitions such as Brahms Competition, Fulbright Concerto Competition, New York Concert Artist Auditions and Szymanowski International Music Competition.
He lectures at universities such as Tokyo University of the Arts, Helsinki Sibelius Academy, Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, Royal Danish Academy of Music, Zurich University of the Arts and Paris-Sorbonne.
WEBSITE | andreasvierziger.com
Patrick Magyar is passionate about people – about their developmental process, about outstanding performances. This passion has shaped his entire professional career: It governed his work as a coach, when promoting both young and professional athletes during 18 years. And it guided him in his professional career including stations as founder CEO of FIFA Marketing AG, as General Manager of the America’s Cup winner team Alinghi, as Meeting Director of Weltklasse Zürich and as CEO of the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich. Moving from sports to education he then was Managing Director of SwissSkills Marketing & Events and of the SwissSkills 2018. Today, Patrick lives in Tuscany, where he runs a B&B with his wife and works as entrepreneur, lecturer, and consultant.
Melanie Lechmann obtained a Master’s degree in Development Studies and a BA in Political Science from the University in Vienna. It was during her student years that she discovered music was not only a passion but also her vocation. From the beginning her focus was on telling stories about music in the digital sphere, starting social media channels and creating state-of-the-art websites for clients and employers. Since 2009 Melanie has worked for the press departments of the Bavarian State Opera and Salzburg Festival, was Head of Press and Digital Communication of the Munich Symphony Orchestra and Marketing Manager at Askonas Holt among others. As a freelancer she has consulted with and built digital presences for singers, conductors and instrumentalists as well as cultural institutions like the Munich Philharmonic, streaming platform takt1, festivals or competitions.
INSTAGRAM | melaniedigitally
Tim Carroll is Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival, Ontario, one of North America’s biggest theatre companies. Before that he was Associate Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, London, where he directed many productions, including Twelfth Night and Richard III (with Mark Rylance), which broke box-office records on Broadway and received several awards, including two Tonys. Other Shakespeares include The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Tim Carroll’s theatre and opera work has been seen all over the world, including New York’s Lincoln Centre, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Liceu (Barcelona), Royal Festival Hall (London), and Sydney Opera House.
WEBSITE | shawfest.com
Alexis Milligan is the founding director of Transitus Creative, an interdisciplinary performing arts company specializing in Knowledge Exchange, Art Communication, and public engagement through the arts transitus.ca. With her company she has been a lead project partner in knowledge translation and exchange with The Dalhousie University School of Nursing, the Association of Nova Scotia Museums, Parks Canada, and with gender consultant Michelle Raine. She has also developed a series of workshops in whole-person communication, entitled Speaking in Silence, which she has taught at many international conferences and universities.
Within her work as an artist, teacher, and researcher, Alexis is an Education and Community Outreach Specialist and the Head of Movement with The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. She is a recurring guest teacher at NYU: Tisch School for the Performing Arts, and also a project director with both the Canadian Network for Imagination and Creativity and The Atlantic Centre for Creativity.
WEBSITE | alexismilligan.com
Knut Eigler has worked as a lawyer at Berndorff Rechtsanwälte in Berlin since 1998 and advises a large number of national and international creative professionals and companies from the music, entertainment and advertising industries. He is also a bar approved „Specialist Lawyer for Copyright and Media Law“, contributes to specialist books and articles and lectures regularly at the HMT Leipzig University of Music and Theatre, among others. As a former musician and event organiser, he knows not only the legal perspective but also the practical view of his clients.
Axel Brüggemann studied history, musicology and art history at the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg. He was part of the editorial board of “Welt am Sonntag“ before becoming a freelancer. He has published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine “Sonntagszeitung“, “Stern“ and other papers.
Brüggemann has worked on numerous films as a director and writer and - among many others - created the most successful SKY docu-series in 2019, the six-part “Porn Culture“. He has developed numerous TV concepts for e.g. arte and ZDF. For his own show from the Bayreuth Festival on SKY he was awarded the Bavarian Television Prize and nominated for the Grimmepreis. His film "Wagner, Bayreuth und der Rest der Welt“ was nominated for the German Documentary Film Award.
Brüggemann has written numerous books, including Franz Welser-Möst Möst's autobiography, two Wagner biographies, a Mozart book, a music history for young people and books on politics and society. His concept for the DG series Der Kleine Hörsaal was awarded the ECHO-Klassik Award. Brüggemann hosted a program on Klassik-Radio and now runs the weekly podcast “Alles klar, Klassik?“ for the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Liz Mohn Center. He also has a classical music column on SWR2. His weekly newsletter Die Klassik-Woche for Crescendo is one of the most successful classical music newsletters in Germany. Brüggemann writes for numerous media.