For three decades until her death, Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos maintained a close connection with the mdw’s Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology. One approach to engaging with Ruža’s musical legacy is enabling her songs to live on through their performance by other musicians.

Our university’s cooperation with the Munich-based classical recording label Solo Musica represents the latest step toward rendering the outstanding achievements of mdw students even more visible and audible. The first such project to have been realised is a recording with the Chaos String Quartet.

In late January of this year, conductor Marin Alsop was made an honorary member of our institution. With this act, the mdw recognised Alsop’s internationally outstanding achievements as an artist as well as her work to promote women conductors and support the musical education of children and adolescents.

In our series “What does art have to do with the Earth’s climate?” the “green mdw” initiative invites concerned individuals to speak out on their personal approaches to this issue. Milly (Emilie) Groz is a Vienna-based pianist and rhythmist who works in jazz and improvised music.

Music in Society is a new master’s degree programme combining social science with artist practice that is unique worldwide and will be launched at the mdw in the 2024/25 winter semester. It was conceived by the Department of Music Sociology.

On 4 and 5 December 2023, the mdw once again did justice to its reputation as a centre of research on Hanns Eisler. The “EislerTage 2023” took place in cooperation with the International Hanns Eisler Society, the Hanns and Steffy Eisler Foundation and other partners.

From 25 to 27 April 2024, the mdw will be hosting an international event centred on “Critiques of Power in the Arts”. The individual topics to be covered include epistemic violence, hierarchies in the arts, power in cultural policy and management, global asymmetries, identity in crisis and many more.

The mdw was recently honoured with an Erasmus+ Award, conferred by the Austrian Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD) as part of a festive ceremony on 12 December 2023.

This summer semester, the first students are commencing their studies under the new Master of Arts in Music Therapy curriculum. This master’s degree programme joins the Bachelor of Arts in Music Therapy (launched in 2020) to complete the step-by-step replacement of the old music therapy diploma programme with a new BA/MA structure.