In this mdw Magazine interview, the intriguing genesis of the community music project weites Nahen [Proximate Distance] and the preparations for its performance on the mdw Campus on 3 June 2026 are discussed by Axel Petri-Preis (co-artistic director, Participation and Community), Peter Jakober (co-artistic director, Composition), Bettina Büttner-Krammer (Head of Music Education, Wiener Symphoniker), Lukas Kobermann (conductor of the wind ensemble Blasmusik Kagran), Mariia Pysmenna (secondary school teacher, MS Johann-Hoffmann-Platz), and Emir Handzo (secondary school teacher, MS Brüßlgasse).

“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.

The mdw’s Church of St. Ursula can look back upon 350 years as an important location for (sacred) music in Vienna. Empress Dowager Eleonora Gonzaga, the widow of Emperor Ferdinand III, brought the Order of Saint Ursula to Vienna in 1660. A central concern of this order, one that they shared with the Jesuits, was to promote education. The small group of invited sisters, who arrived from Liège, first took up residence on Dorotheergasse before moving to Johannesgasse in 1663.

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.

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.