The mdw’s Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology, which is Austria’s largest place of research and teaching in its field, has existed at the mdw for 60 years. It’s hence no wonder that the department’s history is commonly viewed as having begun in 1965. However, folk music as well as research on folk music had been present here long before.

In ethnomusicology, one frequently deals with the music and dance of people who are perceived to be “different”. However, one needn’t travel to the far corners of the earth to do so—after all, Vienna itself is home to an extremely varied range of musical cultures that exist side by side.