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.

The upcoming 32nd edition of the tradition-steeped Vienna Days of Contemporary Piano Music, scheduled to take place at the mdw from 30 January to 3 February 2026, will feature Tristan Murail as a guest—reason enough to present a brief portrait of this intriguing composer.

In order to afford women composers a more visible presence in piano lessons, the Ludwig van Beethoven Department launched a three-phase project that links scholarship, artistic practice, and media visibility. The objective was to establish a more diverse repertoire in the realm of instrumental training.

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.

Michael Frischenschlager and Clemens Hellsberg speak with mdw Magazine about this once-in-a-century virtuoso and great humanist on the occasion of his 150th birthday in 2025.

Jan Jiracek von Arnim, who was appointed as the mdw’s youngest-ever professor of piano in 2001 and assumed artistic directorship of the International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna in 2011, talks about proper breathing, dancing lessons’ beneficial impact on music-making, and his ambivalent stance toward competitiveness in the arts.

In the recent practicum “Jazz in Austria” an introduction to important holdings at Viennese libraries was paired with a focus on artistic legacies and collections at the archives and libraries of the mdw.

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.

The 2024/25 winter semester saw baritone Thomas Hampson give a master class on Mahler interpretation at the mdw in collaboration with the Center for Research on Gustav Mahler and Viennese Modernism. Hampson, doubtless one of the foremost singers of our time, met Daniel Ender for a chat in the cafeteria on Lothringerstraße.