From the very beginnings of the now-global movement that is hip hop culture back in the 1970s, women played a role. And even if hip hop’s historiography has for the most part centred near-exclusively on men, figures such as Silvia Robinson, Roxanne Shanté, Salt N Peppa, Lil Kim, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliot, Nicky Minaj, and Cardi B. demonstrate how female hip hop artists have always played an important role in this culture’s development.

This music therapist’s five-month leave period to earn her degree after the fact coincided with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Sibylle Kefer explains to mdw Magazine why she looks kindly on some aspects of last year’s sudden standstill—and why, for her sixth album, she no longer wants to be dependent on others.

On 25 February, mdw conducting students participated in a master class on Beethoven’s 5th Symphony at the Vienna Konzerthaus given by Andrés Orozco-Estrada together with the Vienna Symphony.

This versatile artist gathered her initial experiences with community outreach during a voluntary social year in Costa Rica. And by now, she can look back upon numerous successful projects—like developing the All Stars Inclusive Band (the mdw’s first inclusive ensemble) and assuming musical direction of the Wiener Festwochen festival opener.

Richard Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos is the ideal material for a project that aims to interlace the numerous departments of the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Participants explain just why that is so in a conversation with mdw Magazine.

What kinds of works written for the piano are well suited to helping young players discover the world of contemporary music? What are the technical boundaries within which one can compose innovative piano pieces of pedagogical value that are realisable in lessons and still embody convincing compositions in their own right?

Since 2015, Marialena Fernandes and her students have taken regular trips to the Indian province of Goa. And last year, before the backdrop of Beethoven 2020, they were able to gather some very special musical impressions.

The Webern Kammerphilharmonie, whose players are drawn from the ranks of the mdw, was first brought together with a concrete objective in mind: to support young artists in launching their future careers as professional orchestral players. The ensemble, originally with the English words “Chamber Orchestra” in its name, was founded in 2015. Ever since, it’s been bringing together excellent mdw students and graduates.

In keeping with the motto “change as a driving force”, this successful and authentic singer, bandleader, and composer—a courageous, powerful woman whose art overcomes divisions in more ways than one—is fighting for better working conditions in her profession and for social justice.