My name is David "Takashi" Favrod. I was born on July 2, 1982, in Kobe, Japan, to a Japanese mother and a Swiss father. When I was six months old, my parents decided to come and live in Vionnaz, a small village in the lower Valais.  [...]

On a sunny day in Basel, delicate tunes waft through the windows of the Schola Cantorum, the world’s oldest institution for the study of “old music”. Eighty years on, that term - and the school’s role - is constantly being re-defined.  [...]

With help from Swiss experts, world-renowned musician Lyndon Watts sought to feature his instrument and resurrect one of the greatest models ever made: the legendary Savary bassoon, once considered the “Stradivarius of bassoons”.  [...]

Switzerland won its first medal at the ice hockey world championships in 60 years, capturing the silver medal after losing to hosts Sweden 5-1 in the final in Stockholm on Sunday.  [...]

Although his profession is teaching business, Reto Marthaler’s passion is gymnastics. He spends hundreds of hours per year organising local and regional boys’ programmes. The sport is on his mind “every day, every hour, every second”.  [...]

It’s crowded in the dressing room. And no wonder. A folk trio, a jazz singer and a classically-trained violinist are all relaxing before a joint show. Such genre-bending is common in Swiss folk music today - as is a back-to-roots shift.  [...]

Yodeller Nadja Räss exemplifies today’s crossover Swiss folk music scene, and is equally happy experimenting in jazz, listening to 100-year-old yodel recordings or teaching CEOs how to communicate.  [...]

A pear-shaped colourless diamond – the largest ever offered at auction – has sold for a record CHF25.9 million ($26.7 million) in Geneva, where records were also set for the prices of pearls and sapphires, auctioneer Christie’s said.  [...]

Little known in the English-speaking world, Swiss author, anarchist and war correspondent Blaise Cendrars has been confirmed as a pillar of French literature with the inclusion of his autobiographical works in the prestigious Pléiade collection.  [...]

Saudi filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour has won worldwide acclaim for her first feature film, Wadjda, filmed in her home country. Al-Mansour, who has traded her veil for jeans, has cultivated a style that allows her to make strong statements with gentility.  [...]

Onlookers didn't let Sunday's cold and wet weather keep them from the Poya festival in Estavannens in canton Fribourg. There they cheered on the cattle headed to pasture for the summer.  [...]