It’s now official: the isaScience conference is history, having made way for the isaResearch Summer School as a new format for research within the framework of isa.

16–18 October 2025 will see the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies (IKM) celebrate 50 years of existence. Reason enough to pop the corks, recall our department’s beginnings, reflect upon developments since then, and conceive of perspectives for the future!

What happens after a fixed-term contract ends? How can career development, international mobility, and caregiving responsibilities be reconciled? The uncertainty and precariousness alluded to in these questions are only compounded by the increasing pressure to publish as well as dependence on third-party funding. Discussion of these issues is ongoing both nationally and in European research at large.

Peter Schmidl was born in Olomouc, Moravia in 1941 and grew up in a family whose musical roots extended back to the days of Gustav Mahler. His father and grandfather had been first clarinettists of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera.

In its current exhibition, the mdw’s Exilarte Center has created a space of remembrance for the exiled Viennese composer Erich Zeisl. Erich Zeisl was born in Vienna in 1905, and it was with flying colours that he passed his entrance examination at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (today’s mdw).

From 30 May to 6 June 2025, the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna hosted an international seminar entitled “Quality versus Participation? Politics in Music and Performing Practices”. This week-long event brought together students from the mdw, the University of Cape Coast (Ghana), the University of Maiduguri, the University of Arts Linz, and the Center for World Music as part of the ongoing collaboration with the international graduate school “Performing Sustainability”.

On 23 June 2025, the Banquet Hall of the mdw played host to the third edition of “Kooperieren – Amateurmusiker_innen musizieren mit Studierenden” [Cooperating – Amateur Musicians Make Music with Students]. This evening event, held as part of the annual Fête de la Musique, once again placed amateur music-making and musical exchange between students, teachers, and lay musicians firmly in the spotlight.

How does the truly “artistic” manifest itself in a music lesson—and how can that be put into words? These questions were central to the interdepartmental workshop “Instrumental-/Vokaldidaktik künstlerisch befragt” [Instrumental and Vocal Didactics, Artistically Queried], organised by the Music Education for Voice and Instruments (IGP) team.

It is music’s power to overcome barriers and leave people deeply touched that the association Musethica has to thank for its consistent development since the very beginning.

Over the past four semesters, 16 students have engaged deeply with forms of artistic expression, techniques, and processes, also pursuing intensive work on the deepening of their own artistic language, various modes of collaboration, the scholarly undergirding of artistic practice, the cultural landscape’s socioeconomic and/or socio-political structures, and competencies relevant to managing organisations and oneself.