Sarah Buechi wins the Moods-Aïda Alliman Prize

Since 2016, Moods has been awarding the Moods-Aïda Alliman Prize in collaboration with the Aïda Alliman Foundation. Each year, a musician from Switzerland or Liechtenstein is awarded financial support and the opportunity to perform at Moods. This year, the jury selected Sarah Buechi as the winner.

A total of 28 applications were submitted for the last edition of the Moods-Aïda Alliman Prize. These were examined in detail by the three-person expert jury. Applicants had to submit a letter of motivation and details of their artistic plans. The continuity of the musician's previous work and their development potential were important assessment criteria.The winner was Sarah Buechi, a well-travelled singer and composer from Central Switzerland, known as a 'globetrotter', who presented a vision for a 'sound body for singers' based on the big band format. She impressed the expert jury with her cross-scene approach and her commitment to including the needs of younger, aspiring singers in her vision for the future. The jury added: "Her long-term vision of an institutionalised vocal ensemble has great potential for a lasting impact. This year's prize could therefore support not only the applicant, but potentially many others as well."Working without financial pressure
The prize money from the Moods-Aïda Alliman Prize is intended to enable supported musicians to work freely over a longer period of time, removing the pressure to deliver immediate results. Sarah Buechi intends to use the prize money to further develop her work with voices, writing compositions and experimenting with them.The singer says: "After immersing myself in the world of Swiss legends with Pink Mountain Sagas, I would like to continue exploring my roots. Incorporating the larger sound of the choir is a compositional experiment for me, but it is also a return to important influences from my childhood. The music will examine the Swiss cultural heritage of mountain stories through the eyes of the 21st century."In addition to the prize money, Sarah Buechi will have the opportunity to perform a project of her choice at Moods during the next concert season.

Sarah Buechi

Click on the arrow to find out more about the singer and composer.

Sarah Buechi has been a professor of jazz singing at the HSLU since autumn 2018. She has over 15 years' experience in developing the role of singing in contemporary European jazz at a professional level. She has performed her own projects on renowned stages such as the Berlin Jazz Festival and the Intakt Festival London, and has collaborated with renowned ensembles such as the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hessian Radio Big Band as a singer and composer.