© Inge Prader, 2017

One of the central missions of any university is to directly impact society. This is why the mdw, like other institutions, is now placing an ever greater focus on community outreach projects. This issue’s Special lays out why participation and mutual sharing are absolutely central to this endeavour, was the significance of community work is, and why community outreach has long been an area of ethnomusicological research.

In a new mdw Magazine series, the “green mdw” initiative poses the question, “What does art have to do with the Earth’s climate?” In response, people from various areas of the University community will be portraying their personal approaches to climate protection and sustainability as well as reflecting on their own professional practices. In the run-up to the Future Art Lab’s grand opening on the mdw Campus, Hans-Peter Weiss—who is the CEO of BIG, the company that manages Austria’s federally owned real estate—talks about BIG’s involvement in shaping inspiring places to learn and work as well as about what it’s like to collaborate with an arts university. And with the Mozart Experience, 2022 will see Vienna enriched by a 1,500-square-metre audio-visual and multimedia attraction that invites guests to immerse themselves in Mozart’s world—the music of which will be recorded and produced by the mdw as this project’s exclusive partner. We provide you with some initial glimpses.

You can also read just why the opera Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss is the ideal work around which to launch an interdepartmental cooperative effort at the mdw, as well as about how a fantastic masterclass with Andrés Orozca-Estrada and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Vienna Konzerthaus was able to take place at short notice in late February. Furthermore, we shine a spotlight on the difficulties that graduates of the Max Reinhardt Seminar are currently facing due to the coronavirus pandemic. And just how the gender-specific imbalances that are coming to light in the face of the current crisis are being commented on, legitimised, or even swept under the rug by politicians is being researched by the new project “Performing Gender in View of the Outbreak”, which has been running since March at the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies (IKM). Finally, we take an optimistic look ahead towards this summer, when isa – the International Summer Academy of the mdw will return to the Semmering/Rax region while also celebrating its first-ever hybrid edition.

I wish you an interesting read!

Comments are closed.