Reach higher, reach beyond.
Mentoring-Programm für Prae und Post Docs der mdw (Frauen, inter* und nicht-binäre Personen)

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Die Mentees

Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir (she/her) is an Icelandic composer and artistic researcher based in Vienna. Her work centers on voice, embodiment, and extended vocal techniques, weaving ecomusicology and experimental writing into interdisciplinary practice. A doctoral candidate at the Artistic Research Center at mdw, she received the phonoECHOES prize for Sound Art, Improvisation and Experimental Music at Klangzeit Festival 2023. She contributes to the European project CYANOTYPES at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and was co-artistic director of Skálholt Summer Concerts (2022). A member of the art collective HLÖKK, whose debut album Hulduhljóð won the Kraumur Award, her work has been presented internationally—from hidden sound installations in forests to theatrical vocal compositions—at festivals including Lucerne Festival Forward, Dark Music Days, and Young Nordic Music.
©Sigga Ella

 

Isabel Frey is a Senior Artist and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) and a Yiddish singer. Her research focuses on Jewish music, diaspora, minority studies, gender & queer studies, religious studies, sound studies and urban ethnomusicology. She completed her PhD in the Structured Doctoral Program at mdw 2020–2024 on contemporary transmission and performance of Yiddish folksong, and was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies in 2023. She co-led the arts-based pilot research project “Challenging the Theater of Memory: Yiddish Song beyond Kitsch and Stereotype” (2022–2024) with Benjy Fox-Rosen at the Music and Minorities Research Center of mdw. She currently leads the FWF-funded project “(Un)heard Neighbors: An urban ethnomusicology of proximity“, (TAI1016625, 2025–2027). Outside academia, she is a sought-after performer and teacher of Yiddish song, tours internationally and has released three albums of Yiddish song. 
©Viktoria Hofmarcher

 

Nastasia Heckendorff is a musicologist and postdoctoral researcher in the FWF project “Composing | Publishing | Performing Opera: The Making of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Lulu” at the Alban Berg Foundation in Vienna. She previously held a research and teaching position at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena, where she received her PhD in 2024 with a dissertation on the intersections of politics and music theater in 17th-century Italy (“Inszenierte Politik und politische Inszenierung – die Bühnenwerken Marco Marazzoli im Kontext des seicento” forthcoming with Bärenreiter). Further academic appointments include fellowships and visiting positions at Yale University, the German Historical Institute in Rome, and Humboldt University of Berlin. Her teaching and research focus on performance studies, authorship, and material cultures, with particular attention to the cultural history of music in the early modern period and modernity. Further information nastasiaheckendorff.com
©Catherine Peter

 

Judith McGregor studied Instrumental Pedagogy (Viola) at the mdw and completed the Master’s program Music Mediation at the ABPU Linz. Since 2022 she has been University Assistant in the Department of Instrumental and Vocal Pedagogy at the mdw. During her studies she began teaching at music schools in Lower Austria and developed numerous music mediation projects with schools, artists, and partner institutions. As a freelance violist she collaborates with ensembles such as Neue Oper Wien and the Symphony Orchestra of the Volksoper Vienna. From 2016 to 2022 she worked at Music & Arts Schools Management Lower Austria. Her doctoral research focused on music mediation in the context of instrumental pedagogy, and she contributes to professional committees and networks on national and university level.
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Emma Schrott studied musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of Vienna, Université Paris-Sorbonne, and the University of Oxford, graduating with distinction as a St Hugh’s College scholar. Her research explores sonic engagements with emotional and embodied experiences during times of crises, from TikTok soundscapes mobilizing political action during COVID-19 to communal electronic dance music practices as resistance in wartime Ukraine. She has also worked at the New York-based Leo Baeck Institute, conducting oral history interviews on Austrian-Jewish emigration to North America. Her PhD at the mdw, part of the ERC-funded project “GOING VIRAL. Music and Emotions during Pandemics (1679-1919)”, investigates the cultural history and history of experience of the Spanish Flu in Vienna.
©Sara Honarmand Ebrahimi

 

Jagoda Szmytka is a contemporary music composer, artist and artistic researcher in the field of contemporary music Since 2021 she is pursuing her artistic research doctoral degree at the Artistic Research Center of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna — currently finalising her dissertation »Almanac of Extended Composition«. Her artistic research focuses on musical notation, the organisation of musical material, compositional tools and methods in instrumental composition and in connection with drawing.
The composer’s creative output encompasses over forty compositions written for solo instruments, chamber and large ensembles, some of which are extended through audio and video projection. Moreover, she wrote one chamber opera and three experimental music theatres. The aesthetics of her music is rooted in exploration of the of instruments and characterised by expressive gestures. Szmytka collaborated with numerous international ensembles, such as ensemble recherche, ensemble modern, ensemble phace, kronos quartet. Her music was commissioned by renowned institutions and festivals, such as the Great Theatre National Opera in Warsaw, Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern or Lucerne Festival. Jagoda Szmytka’s compositions are published by PWM Edition. Additionally to composing, Jagoda Szmytka practices drawing on paper.
Composer’s profile at the PWM Edition website
©Rheinmainstudio

 

Irene Stepniczka studied musicology and cognitive science (focuses: psychology, neuroscience, and AI) at the University of Vienna. Since 2018, she has been working in various contexts and projects at the WZMF – Music Therapy Research Centre Vienna (Wiener Zentrum für Musiktherapie-Forschung), which is part of the Institute for Music Therapy at the mdw. She has developed a questionnaire to support reflection regarding intra- and interpersonal relationship experiences in dyadic music therapy improvisations (together with Monika Smetana, Website), co-led the participatory project "My Tune. Music Therapy from Our Perspectives" (together with Julia Fent), and is performing research into music therapy in a neuroscientific setting (together with Thomas Stegemann, Website). Her current focus is on her dissertation “Music therapy – a sociodynamic system – interactions, effects, and influencing factors,” which will bring together interdisciplinary perspectives on music therapy.
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Karla Louisa Stolle has been a doctoral student at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna since October 2024. Her dissertation compares music education across Europe by analyzing curricula from five countries. Her research interests include international music education, curriculum studies, language-sensitive teaching, and practice-oriented instruction. Previously, she studied Music and German Education at the University of Potsdam, completed her state examination in 2022 with distinction, and was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation. Alongside her doctoral studies, she works as a university assistant at the mdw and coordinates, together with Prof. Dr. Isolde Malmberg, the Erasmus+ project TEAM. More information: mdw.ac.at/imp/?PageId=4381
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