Since 2018, FONDATION SUISA has been awarding «Get Going!» grants to music creators who are at an artistic turning point and need time, freedom and the ability to take risks for their next step. Each year, the programme awards grants of CHF 25,000 each to projects focusing not on a finished product but on the process: research, development, reorientation. In 2025, the jury selected eight projects that stand out for their courage, artistic independence and social relevance.
Congratulations to the eight beneficiaries!
RAPHAEL LOHER & PHILIPP SCHLOTTER ｜ Well Tuned Pianos
The pianists and composers Raphael Loher and Philipp Schlotter have been active on the Swiss music scene for years as versatile musicians, working at the intersection of experimental electronic music, ambient, improvisation and collective projects.
With their project ‘Well Tuned Pianos’, they deconstruct and question something that seems self-evident: the tuning of the piano. Abandoning conventional Western scales, they explore other tonal systems, such as those found in gamelan music, where instruments are deliberately detuned in relation to each other, creating a vibrant and shimmering sound. With two other transportable pianos that have only one string per note, they explore different tunings. In addition to the tunings, the spectrum of harmonics is enriched by the preparation work. Through improvisation and experimentation, they aim to create their own tunings and transform them into a new common musical practice and a new musical language.
The jury praised this experimental approach, which places contemporary music in a new context, as well as the courage to radically deepen an existing duo’s work rather than limiting themselves to planning a new album.
raphaelloher.com
instagram.com/philippbenjaminschlotter
COCO SCHWARZ ｜ Echoes of Extinction
Coco Schwarz is a musician and sound artist with a background in international classical music, who now devotes most of their time to electroacoustic, experimental and atmospheric music.
With their project ‘Echoes of Extinction’, Schwarz highlights animal species threatened with extinction in Switzerland – species that often go unnoticed, but which are acoustically omnipresent. In collaboration with biologists and ecologists, sounds are collected from biospheres and archives and then electroacoustically transformed so that the croaks, rustles and cries of endangered animals merge into dense soundscapes. The aim is not to create faithful naturalistic audio archives, but to create a sensory and political space in which loss and transformation become audible. Schwarz conceives of sound as a means of ecological memory and as an active artistic action.
The jury referred to a total work of art, at the crossroads of several disciplines, and highlighted the coherence with which field recordings, research on the sounds of nature and electronics are articulated around a major socio-political theme, in line with an already well-established line of work.
SIMONE AUBERT ｜ Projets 26/27
Simone Aubert is a guitarist, drummer, singer, composer and multidisciplinary artist. For more than twenty years, she has been evolving in a musical landscape that defies classification, combining pop, punk, electronic, folk, rock, experimental and contemporary music.
With more than 1,100 concerts on five continents under her belt, she now wants to use ‘Projets 26/27’ to reorganise her many activities and develop them in a more targeted way. She plans to release the third album of her ‘Tout Bleu’ project, followed by an international tour, the recording of a solo album and the creation of a new post-punk trio. To this end, she is developing the association ‘Phasma’, which is responsible for the administration, planning and coordination of her activities, in order to free up time for music, composition and rehearsals. She now wants to give more space and importance, for herself and the musicians around her, to the creative process than to the multiplication of concerts, allowing for more research residencies and composition time, in fair working conditions for everyone involved.
The jury highlighted the diversity of her career, her highly personal musical language and the remarkable intensity of her creative work and concerts, which are now set to flourish within a consolidated structure.
CAMILLA SPARKSSS ｜ Explore Sound Frequencies for Healing
Camilla Sparksss is the alias of Swiss-Canadian musician Barbara Lehnhoff, co-founder of the indie band Peter Kernel and the label On The Camper Records. As a live artist, she is known for her energetic performances that combine experimentation, electronica, dark wave and punk.
In the project “Explore sound frequencies for healing”, she turns her previous stage energy on its head: instead of maximum volume and adrenaline, the focus is on frequencies, vibrations and sound spaces that are intended to calm, slow down and create a kind of meditative intensity. She explores how her radical sound can be transformed into a practice that targets physical and psychological effects – a kind of laboratory for healing, but by no means tame electronic music.
The jury spoke of a “punk spin-off” operating at a high artistic level and with a strong track record, and praised her international career, which will now be given an intentional space for input, research and reorientation.
KNOBIL ｜ Knobil Large Ensemble
KNOBIL (Louise Knobil) is a double bass player, singer and composer. She blends jazz, punk, French chanson and a unique narrative approach, tinged with humour, to create her own musical universe.
With the ‘Knobil Large Ensemble’, she expands her current trio into a sextet featuring brass, guitar and rhythm section, in a deliberately FLINTA*-dominated line-up. Her new repertoire tackles themes such as free love, patriarchal violence, ADHD, mental health and ‘pick-me’ culture – subjects more commonly found in essays or discussion threads, but which are treated here in the form of richly orchestrated jazz-punk songs carried by a strong stage energy. ‘Get Going!’ will enable her to develop compositions and arrangements during an intensive solo residency, finance rehearsals and establish the large ensemble as a stage project ready to tour in Switzerland and abroad.
The jury described her as a ‘young musician of exceptional talent’ whose career is taking off, and praised her courage in leading an ambitious project that transforms rhythm and agitation into a true artistic distillation.
LUM ｜ Développement du projet LUM
LUM is a 23-year-old pop, rap and reggaeton artist of Swiss, French and Spanish origin. Dividing her time between Lausanne and Zurich, she writes songs in French and Spanish, effortlessly blending rap and singing.
With ‘Développement du projet LUM’, she wants to transform her current momentum – marked in particular by a viral freestyle in seven languages with nearly three million views, as well as numerous concerts – into a sustainable project. This development involves expanding her home studio, improving her production tools and collaborating with external producers in order to preserve a high degree of artistic freedom. At the same time, LUM wants to refine her visual universe and stage presence, so that music, images, lyrics and energy tell a coherent and unique story. Her political message, in particular her positioning as a counterweight to a rap scene still largely dominated by men, occupies a central place in her artistic approach. Finally, in 2026-2027, LUM plans to create a major project (EP, album, etc.), with the aim of developing her musical universe in parallel with the stage and unifying her entire artistic project into a strong and accomplished vision.
The jury highlighted her strong personality, the clarity of her political content and her role as a multilingual artist, capable of connecting different linguistic regions of Switzerland while providing an essential female counterpoint to the current rap scene.
ANUK SCHMELCHER ｜ Recherchephase für neue Musik
Anuk Schmelcher est musicienne, productrice et artiste sonore suisse. Elle écrit, joue et produit sa musique elle-même, poursuivant de manière cohérente une pratique de production autonome avec un accent clair sur le processus de production en studio.
Avec la sortie de son premier album «Something Else» (auto-produit, 2025), elle se tourne résolument vers l’avenir. La contribution du programme « Get Going! » soutient une phase de développement artistique au cours de laquelle l’attention se concentrera clairement sur la production et l’écriture de nouvelles compositions. Anuk Schmelcher souhaite approfondir son travail avec des instruments classiques tels que batterie, synthétiseur, guitare et basse, et développer de nouvelles approches en enregistrement et design sonore pour affiner davantage son univers sonore. En parallèle, cette contribution lui offre l’espace nécessaire pour expérimenter différents formats et explorer la manière dont son projet pourra à l’avenir atteindre le public – sans pression immédiate d’attente ou de rentabilité.
Le jury a salué une musique émouvante et une production convaincante, soulignant l’importance de rendre plus visible le travail des productrices et d’expérimenter de nouveaux formats de diffusion.
MARC MÉAN ｜ L’orgue comme voyage de découverte
Marc Méan est un pianiste et compositeur de jazz né à Vevey et installé à Zurich. Il se produit avec son trio Fields ainsi que dans des formats solo hybrides, où piano ou orgue dialoguent avec l’électronique, les boucles et le traitement en temps réel.
Dans son projet «L’orgue comme voyage de découverte», il explore l’orgue comme instrument situé entre tradition et expérimentation. Partant des improvisations de son album «Rituals», enregistré dans une église lausannoise, il poursuit désormais ses recherches sur les orgues du cimetière de Sihlfeld à Zurich, dont les sonorités sont intimement liées aux thèmes de la vie, de la mort et du souvenir. Il y développe un live set dans lequel les sons d’orgue s’entremêlent avec la synthèse granulaire, les boucles et le traitement électronique, sans basculer pour autant dans la musique classique ou purement religieuse. «Get Going!» lui offre la possibilité de rassembler ces expériences éparses, de développer une forme performative cohérente et de poser les bases d’un nouvel album solo.
Le jury a qualifié ce projet de passionnant, porté par une musique forte, qui approfondit des travaux existants et révèle un pianiste de jazz empruntant des chemins singuliers et résolument expérimentaux.
