As the winter semester begins, we bid a warm welcome to our newly founded Department of Early Music, which bundles many years of experience together with innovative power in order to expand upon the mdw’s existing historically informed performance specialisations and make new degree programs possible. This issue of our magazine provides you with some insights into the early music field’s history at the mdw as well as on what the new department heads are now planning. We also hear from several of the Early Music Department’s renowned teachers about how they came to early music, about their personal aspirations for the Early Music Department, and about the attitudes they’ll be bringing to bear in their work here. Furthermore, a look at a recent project to reconstruct a period harpsichord shows the importance of research on historical instruments as a component of this new department’s work.

© Inge Prader, 2017

You can also read about what mdw teaching staff members learned from their experience teaching digitally last semester, including how these experiences may be of use in the future. The Max Reinhardt Seminar’s new leading team, Maria Happel and Annett Matzke, talk about their work and the ideas they’ve brought along with them for our acting and directing students. What’s more, two students from the Screenplay Writing and Dramaturgy class at Film Academy Vienna report on their experiences studying abroad.

And finally, a new exhibition at the mdw’s exil.arte Center presents Marta Eggerth and Jan Kiepura’s lives and careers as film and stage performers while also shedding light on the fates of numerous individuals connected to this dream-couple from the worlds of film, opera, and operetta.

I wish you a good start to the academic year and an enriching read!

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