The Future Art Lab in Pictures.

It’s likely that anyone who’s already cast a glance into the new Future Art Lab (FAL) on the mdw Campus has quickly realised how unbelievably much there is there to discover. Ultramodern sound studios and editing rooms, a concert hall that’s to be filled with life right from the start, and an in-house cinema are just some of what awaits students, teachers, and everyone else.

After over 100 years at Lothringerstraße 18, the Department of Piano (formerly the Department of Keyboard Instruments—i.e., piano, piano vocal accompaniment, harpsichord, and organ) has moved to the mdw Campus at Anton-von-Webern-Platz.

A new home for the oldest repertoire: with the establishment of the mdw’s 25th department, instrumentalists and singers now have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of historically informed performance more fully than ever before.

The academic year of 2020/21 marks the birth of the mdw’s Department of Early Music—and in the following conversation, department head Stefan Gottfried and deputy head Eugène Michelangeli speak about their approaches to historically informed performance and the initial projects of this new department.

A central performance practice-related concern is the employment of period instruments or appropriately made replicas thereof, the investigation and mastery of which brings us closer to the music created by those who originally played on them.

The teachers at the mdw’s newly founded Department of Early Music, all of them experienced professionals with many years’ worth of expertise in their field, provided mdw Magazine with diverse insights into their relationships with early music.

Early Music in Picture by Theresa Pewal.