Elemental Music Education (EMp) head Veronika Kinsky and rhythmist Monika Mayr, a senior lecturer at the Department of Music and Movement Education/Rhythmics and Music Physiology, discuss the relevance of music and movement at every age and the impulses that the mdw can offer in this respect.

“One of my earliest specific memories is from my musical training as a small child. We were standing around an open grand piano and were supposed to see how long we could actually hear a note,” remembers the passionate musician. Thanks to music-loving parents who wanted to give him the opportunity to acquire a musical education, the Lower Austria native began with piano lessons in the first form of primary school and then took guitar and saxophone lessons later on.

It was through the Exilarte Center that the passionate chamber musicians of the Ineo Quartet first came into contact with banned music. And today, string quartets by composers such as Julius Bürger and Hans Gál have become fixtures of their repertoire.

A fascination with different ethnicities and worlds of sound has accompanied Salah Ammo since the very beginning. And thanks to a new master’s degree programme at the mdw, this passionate Kurdish Syrian musician has been able to realise a long-held dream: to engage with the broad field of ethnomusicology as a researcher.

It was in 1994 that Ališer Sijarić, a composing student at the Sarajevo Music Academy, received an mdw scholarship to continue his studies far off from the ongoing war. Now a well-regarded composer and educator, Sijarić is following in some illustrious footsteps as the dean of his Bosnian alma mater.

It was in 2014 that the formally trained music therapist Verena Giesinger assumed musical leadership of the Wiener Schmusechor, a choir she’d founded herself—thereby veering off from her former professional path to embark upon a new career. Today, the mdw graduate has found fulfilment in conducting and is setting an example for more diversity in the music scene with her exceptional ensemble.

Ever since he was very little, Paul Müller has been fascinated by singing and by theatre. And to this day, the Austrian-Swiss unites these two passions—winning over audiences when he takes the stage as a singer and actor and demonstrating his pedagogical prowess as a school textbook author and secondary school teacher as well as in his position as a senior artist for voice-related subjects at the Max Reinhardt Seminar and lecturer at the Antonio Salieri Department.

Three performance programme graduates, one idea: it was in 2023 that Manuel Egger, Magdalena Pramhaas, and Sabrina Reheis-Rainer joined forces to found the wienerwald festival [Vienna Woods Festival], a series of events that unite music with nature in unique concert formats at interesting locations.

17 August of this year witnessed the 21st edition of Eurovision Young Musicians—the renowned competition for young classical musicians put on by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)—in Bodø, a European Capital of Culture in 2024. Leonhard Baumgartner, age 17, claimed victory for Austria with his outstanding performance of Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor.

Alexandra Althoff, dramaturge and former artistic director of the Burgtheater, assumed leadership of the mdw’s Max Reinhardt Seminar on 1 March 2024. She and Steffen Jäger, who serves as her deputy head, speak about these new responsibilities, the challenges and planned emphases during their term in office.