The introduction of the Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology at the mdw in October 2019 brought initially subtle but steadily building change to our institution that has, in fact, ended up being quite broad-based. For the first time in the mdw’s 200-year history, it became possible to study styles of music and dance that had previously lacked any representation in an academic context, doing so via both research-based exploration and artistic practice. This master’s degree programme features two integral components: scholarly research and artistic practice. The academic discipline of ethnomusicology is based in ethnographic fieldwork, which takes shape as encounters with people and with the worlds of music and dance in which they live. Cultural plurality plays a significant role, here: in their ethnomusicological research, students engage with the various manifestations of music and dance that are present in our world. And in the curriculum’s scholarly coursework, they also train fundamental research skills such as critical questioning, analytical scrutiny, socio-political responsibility, and reflection upon one’s own positionality.
In addition to becoming acquainted with the most varied dance and musical traditions, the artistic practice included in this programme’s curriculum enables students to engage with a music- or dance-based expressive form of their choice—though unlike in comparable programmes that exist internationally, there are no specifications to this effect. A central criterion of quality featured by this programme is that every music, every style of dance present in our world is welcome and can be selected as an artistic specialisation. Students thus don’t have to choose from a predetermined canon but can bring along to our institution styles of music and dance that relate to their own existing expertise, their own artistic experiences and desires. For these artistic specialisations the department concludes individually tailored contracts with individual teachers, who then contribute to the diversification of the mdw’s overall course offerings—for the courses they teach, being ensemble courses, can be attended by all students. Managing constantly changing artistic course offerings entails administrative effort but results in immense added value; it is this stylistic and cultural openness that makes the mdw’s Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology internationally unique and also serves to combat exclusionary mechanisms. The artistic entrance examination is not about excellence, virtuosity, or competitiveness, with the central admission criterion instead being the ability to express oneself convincingly in one’s chosen style.
The musical diversity in the artistic realm that has found entry to the mdw via this path is vast: third-semester ethnomusicology student Parmis Rahmani’s artistic specialisation is the geychak, an Iranian string instrument. She receives instruction from Armin Sanayei as a member of the Iranian Ensemble. Parmis Rahmani is interested in the geychak partly from the perspective of a researcher, but she also plays in various independent groups—including the Alhân Ensemble for Persian classical music led by Nima Noury, who has just begun her first semester in this programme with an emphasis on the Persian long-necked lute known as the tar.
Dance can likewise be an artistic specialisation—as it was for Katarina Petrović, who received lessons in the Serbian kolo (a circle dance) from the contract teacher Igor Perić and graduated from her studies with distinction in October. Perić is also employed as a teacher by the Serbian dancing association “Stevan Mokranjac”, which has regularly won awards all over Austria and whose young dancers from the Serbian diaspora came to the mdw to join mdw students in rehearsing folk dance choreographies at the highest level—opening our institution to people and communities that had previously been underrepresented here.
Austrian Alpine and Viennese music also have a strong presence. Murasaki Fukada came to Vienna from Japan in order to study violin, as part of which she then discovered her love of Viennese Schrammelmusik. Her artistic specialisation in the ethnomusicology MA programme includes lessons with Manfred Kammerhofer. She is currently in her third semester and engaged in master’s thesis research concerning the stylistic traits that cause Schrammelmusik to sound particularly “Viennese”.
The winter semester of 2024 saw four students from the Music Department of the University of Kabul begin studying at the mdw. After having seen their original programme of study discontinued due to the Taliban’s prohibition of music, they came to Vienna and now cultivate their musical heritage in exile. Their instruction in Hindustani classical music by their own former department head Wahedullah Saghar is funded by proceeds from the Vienna Ball of Sciences, donated for this purpose by Universities Austria (uniko).
Students can also continue developing their artistic specialisations outside of university-based instruction, with such activities then being credited towards their studies. For instance, Nina Wasilewa-Zanechev—currently in her eighth semester of study—assumed directorship of the Bulgarian choir Kitka in Vienna and has since helped them achieve an internationally renowned level of musicianship—now they go on regular tours through Europe.
It’s frequently the case that musicians who are well established in their respective fields choose to study ethnomusicology in order to contextualise their artistic practice in light of the corresponding academic discipline. Salah Ammo, part of the programme’s very first student cohort, is a known quantity in the Viennese world music scene and hence refrained from taking individual lessons, for which he substituted documentation of his frenetic performing schedule and album recordings on the Syrian bouzuk (see Alumnus in Focus). And Liangzi Li, a master of the Chinese zither known as the zheng, was able to have her many years of teaching at tertiary-level institutions of musical training in China credited as her artistic specialisation. Such professionals frequently also share their knowledge with other students by way of workshops and/or courses.
This master’s degree programme’s artistic component traces global social developments. In an ever more strongly networked world and in a transcultural and post-migrant society, insisting on that which is one’s “own” makes little sense for the simple reason that there are so many “owns”. Cultural plurality is not an unrealistic fantasy but, in fact, reality. And the mdw, as one of Europe’s largest places of musical training, bears a responsibility to make cultural diversity visible in its academic offerings.
In 2019, the mdw became the first university in the German-speaking region to offer a standalone master’s degree programme in ethnomusicology, setting an example that several institutions have since followed. As a pioneer in this area, our university conceives of this programme not as lip service to diversity but as a matter of great political significance. And looking ahead, the vision is now to independently anchor musical plurality at the bachelor’s degree level, as well, thereby sustainably establishing cultural diversity as a practice that resounds all across the mdw’s curricula.
