A Week that Continues to Resound
The second edition of isaCommunity, held on the mdw Campus and in the Music in Dialogue Hall (MiD-Saal) at Vienna’s Gasometer complex in July 2026, saw young musicians once again converge on Vienna. Sixteen participants from Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East spent an entire week here working at the interface between artistic practice and social engagement. Their focus was trained on the question of how music can facilitate interpersonal encounters and manifest societal relevance. Collective experimentation and reflection as well as collaborative decision-making processes characterised these days of activity. Workshops on socially engaged musicking, dramaturgy, improvisation, and participation opened up new perspectives on participants’ own artistic practices and invited them to question accustomed ways of thinking and working.
A core component of this week’s endeavours was the development of new concert formats. Together with coaches Kian Jazdi (the Liedstadt Festival), Ana Đorđević (of framed.berlin), Hannah Baumann (mdw), and Axel Petri-Preis (mdw) as well as partner institutions including the Wiener Konzerthaus (Sophie Löschenbrand) and Beethovenfest Bonn (Lydia Kappesser and Julia Klein), ideas arose that were then continually refined, discussed, and tried out. Design sprints, feedback rounds, and phases of reflection at the Wiener Konzerthaus clearly showed how artistic processes seldom run in a straight line. It was much rather the case that quality output arose from negotiation within the group, trust in differing perspectives, and the ability to deal with complexity in a productive way.
Special attention was given to the relationship between musicians and the audience. Repeatedly, the participants tried out ways of turning concerts into sites of encounter—especially with formats that facilitated direct exchange and opened up various ways of approaching music. The concrete outcomes included intimate apartment concerts at the homes of Viennese hosts, pop-up concerts at the Gasometer complex, and the collectively developed concluding concert at the MiD-Saal, where space, dramaturgy, and musical contributions melded to become a coherent narrative. At this final event, the concert experience began right in the entrance area: guests were embraced by musical performances that invited them to make their ways into the MiD-Saal together with the musicians. In this way, the walk over to the concert hall itself became part of the performance.
From my own perspective as a project assistant, it was particularly impressive to observe how an initially heterogeneous group with differing cultural backgrounds, musical experiences, and artistic approaches developed into a community within just a few days. At the same time, however, the musical forces they collectively represented posed a special challenge: three singers, six pianists, three flutists, a pan flute player, and a ghaychak player were indeed a rather unusual constellation. Precisely this diversity, however, proved to be a great asset. It entailed new possibilities in terms of sound, encouraged the creation of unique arrangements, and made clear how enriching different perspectives can be for a collective artistic process.
The end of this intense week of work, far from concluding the project, served as a springboard for its continuation: this autumn, the concert formats developed during isaCommunity will be taken further under professional conditions in cooperation with the mdw’s Music in Dialogue team—as part of Beethovenfest Bonn on 13 and 14 September, in a cooperative event of the Liedstadt Festival and TONALi in Hamburg on 7 and 8 October, and at the Wiener Konzerthaus on 22 October. And in this respect, isaCommunity is reaching far beyond its single summer week to create lasting links between artistic development, institutional practice, and international exchange.
