Kanti-s-wings, Airelle Besson: Workshop – different every time

With the Kanti-s-wings, the band’s line-up never stays the same for long. Pupils sit their Matura exams and leave, whilst new ones join. With them come new voices and new instruments. That’s why every school year starts, to some extent, from scratch.

The student band at the Graubünden Cantonal School has been in existence since 2005. It has been led by Andi Schnoz from the very beginning. A variety of instruments are welcome, which is precisely why the band often looks different from a typical pop group. The current line-up includes not only guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, but also violins, clarinet, saxophone and oboe.

The programme also changes every year. In previous projects, the Kanti-s-wings have tackled music by Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Queen and Lenny Kravitz. To mark their 20th anniversary in 2026, they took on an entire album: ‘Breakfast in America’ by Supertramp.

During the "Tastentage", there’s an extra element. The young people work with a guest musician and prepare a concert together. In 2025, the pianist Florian Favre took part. This collaboration has been a fixture of the festival for years and results in a different version of this project every time.

That is precisely what makes it so appealing. At the start of the school year, nobody knows exactly how the band will sound by the end. An oboe changes an arrangement in a different way to two violins. A new singer brings something else to the table. And with the ‘Tastentage’ project, the personal touch of the guest in question is added to the mix: this time, the trumpeter Airelle Besson is leading the workshop.

That’s why this concert can’t simply be a repeat of last year’s. Different young people, different instruments, a different guest. For the Kanti-s-wings, change is part of the concept.