News

City of Chur Cultural Awards Ceremony

7. August 2026

The city of Chur is presenting its 2026 Recognition and Promotion Awards. The recipients are Clot Buchli (clarinet), Evelina Cajacob (visual arts), and the Schloss Haldenstein Print Workshop for their long-standing cultural contributions in and around Chur. The Promotion Awards go to Jonas Bernetta (directing), Any Sabadi (vocal performance), and Ellen Wolf (dance).

The awards ceremony will take place as part of the public cultural awards celebration on Friday, August 21, 2026, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m., at the Theater Chur. Zoe Hannah Alig will provide musical entertainment during the celebration. Following the ceremony, the City of Chur invites guests to a reception with a variety of hors d’oeuvres. Due to limited seating, registration by August 17, 2026, at the latest.

With its recognition awards , the City of Chur honors at least ten years of cultural work that is of particular significance to the city and its surrounding area. Among this year’s award recipients is clarinetist Clot Buchli. As a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and dedicated music educator, he has made an important contribution to the region’s musical life for many years. Visual artist Evelina Cajacob is also being honored. With her minimalist, poetic works, she has made a name for herself far beyond the borders of Graubünden. The Schloss Haldenstein Print Workshop is also being honored with a recognition award. It has established itself as a significant venue for promoting printmaking.

Supporting young artists with a distinctive artistic voice is also a key priority for the city of Chur. The three sponsorship awards go to theater director and media artist Jonas Bernetta, who combines theater, film, and installations into transdisciplinary narrative forms; to singer-songwriter Any Sabadi, who has developed a distinctive musical language drawing on influences from dialect, soul, pop, and R&B; and to dancer, choreographer, and producer Ellen Wolf, who combines dance, film, and storytelling in her interdisciplinary works. The awards are each endowed with 4,000 Swiss francs. 

 

 

Biographies

Recipients of the Recognition Award

Clot Buchli (*1967) is one of Graubünden’s most influential clarinetists. After earning his teaching diploma in clarinet under Antony Morf at the Lucerne University of Music and Performing Arts, he completed his concert diploma at the Basel Academy of Music under Hans Rudolf Stalder. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Graubünden Chamber Philharmonic, where he performs as both a soloist and an orchestral musician. In addition, he gives concerts as a soloist and is actively involved in a wide range of chamber music activities in various ensembles and styles. As a sought-after guest musician, he also performs with various Swiss orchestras. In 2002, he received the Canton of Graubünden’s Cultural Promotion Award for his musical work. Buchli teaches at the music schools in Chur and Landquart and lives in Haldenstein.

Evelina Cajacob (*1961) is one of Graubünden’s leading contemporary artists. After studying at the Escola Massana in Barcelona (1988–1993), she developed a multifaceted body of work that encompasses drawing, object art, video, and site-specific installations. Her works revolve around themes such as line, movement, repetition, and time, and are characterized by a minimalist, poetic visual language. Cajacob lives and works in Malans and Chur. Her works have been shown in numerous exhibitions both in Switzerland and abroad, including major solo exhibitions at the Bündner Kunstmuseum and the Kunstmuseum Bochum. She has received various awards for her work, including the Südostschweiz Medien Art Prize (2012) and the Canton of Graubünden Recognition Award (2014).

The Schloss Haldenstein Print Workshop was founded in 1999 on the initiative of Haldenstein-based artist Mathias Balzer with the aim of providing visual artists with affordable access to traditional printmaking techniques and promoting professional printmaking. The Haldenstein Castle Print Workshop is supported by the association of the same name.

 

Award Recipients

Jonas Bernetta (born 1994 in Chur) is a theater director, author, and media artist. After studying sociology, philosophy, and media anthropology in Bern and Jena, he completed a two-year assistantship in directing at the Theater St. Gallen and earned a master’s degree in Transdisciplinarity in the Arts from the Zurich University of the Arts in 2024. In his work, he combines theater, film, audio, and installation to create multimedia narrative forms. His work explores questions of perception, technological developments, and their impact on society and the individual. His productions and original works have been presented at various theaters and cultural venues throughout Switzerland. Bernetta lives in Zurich and works in the German-speaking theater scene.

Any ( Andrea Katharina) Sabadi (*1998) is a singer-songwriter. She gained recognition in 2019 through her participation in the BandXost competition, where she took third place with her original compositions. Initially performing songs in English, she later turned to the local dialect and developed a personal style blending soul, pop, R&B, and singer-songwriting. Her performances are characterized by her use of a keyboard and loop station, with which she creates polyphonic soundscapes live. With her EP “Rucksack,” the Chur-based musician established herself as an independent artist and bandleader. In her songs, she draws on personal experiences and blends melancholy, hope, and a zest for life into an authentic musical language.

Ellen Wolf (*1994) is a dancer, choreographer, and producer from Chur. After graduating from high school, she moved to London, where she trained intensively as a professional dancer for several years and gained experience in various dance styles as well as in international productions. She then studied design management in Lucerne and founded the dance company Moving Mountains. In her work, she combines dance, film, storytelling, and site-specific productions into interdisciplinary formats. Her works are often inspired by the mountains of Graubünden, questions of identity, and the relationship between humans and nature. She is active nationally and internationally with her productions and dance films. In 2023, she received a grant from the Canton of Graubünden for her artistic work.

Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.