On 20 February, the Future Art Lab’s Sound Theatre hosted the final round of the Sounding Visions Award. Six exceptional artists and ensembles presented their performances to a live audience both in the hall and online.

2025 marks the beginning of a special cooperative project: CCOM, the mdw, and the renowned Austrian music publisher Universal Edition (UE) have teamed up to plan a competition for young composers. This competition is set to take place every two years, alternating between chamber and orchestral music focuses.

12 June will witness an international symposium and, with it, the opening of the International Research Center Gender and Performativity (ICGP) chaired by the theatre studies scholar and gender studies professor Evelyn Annuß. In view of current anti-gender politics, the establishment of the ICGP is a clear statement by the mdw concerning academic and cultural policy.

From 4 to 7 February of this year, the 6th Mauricio Kagel Composition Competition took place in the Fanny Hensel-Saal and was also streamed live on the Internet. Its jury publicly discussed the 14 compositions nominated for the final round, which saw them performed by students of the Ludwig van Beethoven Department of Piano in Music Education.

isa, the International Summer Academy of the mdw, will take place this year on the mdw’s main campus at Anton-von-Webern-Platz, a new spatial setting that’s well positioned to offer students more opportunities—especially for creative exchange.

To mark the Elemental Music Education (EMp) programme’s 40 years of existence at the mdw, 29 November 2024 witnessed an anniversary celebration in which EMp faculty members provided wide-ranging impressions of their field in its development, breadth, and significance.

On 29 October 2024, ipop hosted a workshop with the American rock guitarist Jennifer Batten. In a field dominated largely by men, Batten is surely one of the best-known and most successful women—and her renown extends beyond the confines of the guitar community.

For years, the mdw has been a leader in the testing and implementation of new streaming technologies. Considerable technological investment and quite some willingness to experiment on the part of all those involved are necessary in order to make possible and utilise high-quality audio and video transfer with the lowest possible latency for concerts, for remote lessons, and especially for musicians playing together live in different locations.

Cellist Anmari van der Westhuizen gave a presentation entitled Cross-Cultural Sounds: South African Contemporary Solo Cello Works on 15 November 2024 at the invitation of the Alma Rosé Department.