The Franz Schmidt Organ Competition was first held in 2006 and has taken place every two years since then. Its initiator was the mdw organ professor Rudolf Scholz (1933–2012), who headed our university’s Department of Keyboard Instruments. As a tireless advocate and promotor of Franz Schmidt’s organ works, his ultimate intent was to help make Schmidt better known.

From 24 to 27 September 2025, the mdw’s Future Art Lab hosted the 21st International Harp Competition of the Franz Josef Reinl Foundation.

What topics from the world of music and the performing arts at large captivate the minds of soon-to-graduate secondary school students? To what questions do current political, societal, and environmental developments give rise? On all this, the recent conferral of the mdw young research award to its third crop of winners offered some insights.

On 15 October 2025, Gertraud Cerha received an honorary doctorate from the mdw. With this distinction, our University sought to acknowledge Gertraud Cerha’s internationally recognised accomplishments in more than one of its academic fields—namely musicology, music education, and music mediation.

2016 lernen sich drei junge Musiker kennen: der Saxophonist Severin Neubauer, der Geiger Maxim Tzekov und der Schlagwerker Severin Hechwartner. Die damals etwa 15jährigen Musiker proben gerade mit elf weiteren hochmusikalischen Jugendlichen des Young Masters Ensembles intensiv für die kommende USA-Tournee.It was in 2016 that the three young musicians Severin Neubauer (saxophone), Maxim Tzekov (violin), and Severin Hechwartner (percussion) became acquainted. Aged 15 at the time, the three were rehearsing intensively for an upcoming US tour together with eleven other highly musical members of the Young Masters Ensemble.

It’s packed—more than packed. The Joseph Haydn-Saal is filled to the last seat, with people sitting on the floor, perched on windowsills, and leaning against the walls despite the live video feed in the foyer and the hot summer temperatures. The programme that’s brought everyone here consists of welcoming addresses, a programmatic introduction, and a keynote, all revolving around questions of gender, performance, and the performative. It’s the official inauguration of the International Research Center – Gender and Performativity (ICGP).

Art bears within it the potential to cast off the old, conceive of the new, and recontextualise the familiar. At the same time, however, arts and cultural institutions as well as arts universities are facing criticism to the effect that they stabilise existing power relations and elites.

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!