Six Swiss cities spend 76 to 95 per cent of their music funding on classical music

Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Zurich spend most of their public music funding on classical music. That is the finding of a comparison compiled by the Musikvielfalt-Initiative for 2024.¹²

Per head, Geneva spent CHF 375 on music, Zurich 236, Lausanne 201, Bern 179, Basel 144 and Lugano 99.² Between 76 and 95 per cent of the music budget goes to the “classical” category, which includes early music, choral music and opera. In Zurich the figure is 95 per cent, in Lausanne 76 per cent.¹² According to the analysis, more than 80 per cent of all funding goes to the same recipients on a multi-year basis.¹

French-speaking Switzerland invests considerably more than German-speaking Switzerland in “musiques actuelles” such as pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop and electronic music. Geneva spends twice as much per head on them as Basel and Bern.¹ The initiative counted municipal and cantonal funding as well as lottery money; its figures come from annual reports, budgets and Swisslos lists, or from enquiries to the relevant offices.¹

The collective is behind the Basel popular initiative “für mehr Musikvielfalt”, which called for at least a third of the music budget to go to independent music-making. Voters rejected it in November 2024, with 64 per cent voting no.²

Next step: whether cities or cantons will respond to the figures remains open. The sources mention no political motion.