Just how it is when all instruments suddenly fall silent, when rounds can no longer be sung, and when orchestras and choirs have to abruptly stop working was made clear to all of us by the past year. But playing as a group or singing in a choir is about far more.

The FWF-funded research project “Achieving Togetherness in Music Ensemble Performance”, based at the Department of Music Acoustics – Wiener Klangstil, aims to shed light on the experiences of togetherness that arise during music performance.

An international comparison of institutions will show that chamber music and ensemble work enjoy very high priority in the artistic training offered at the mdw. This wasn’t always the case, however, and it’s in fact the result of deliberate decisions and consistent developmental work.

mdw student Anna Buchegger took advantage of the COVID standstill to participate in the ORF casting show Starmania. And even after winning it with her own song Ease, the young singer remained true to her ideals: she immediately founded her own label and both produced and released her winning song on her own.

Numerous factors—be they social, economic, or of some other nature—play significant roles in how we’ve been dealing with the situation that has faced us since March 2020. One of these significant factors is what we call “resilience”.

Joshua Jádi is a student at Film Academy Vienna. In the summer of 2020, he accompanied the Marš mira, an important annual event commemorating the war crimes in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with a three-person film crew under the most unfavourable conditions.

How the conductor, mdw professor, and musicologist Johannes Wildner is making active and reflective use of the pandemic, and why he views this crisis as an opportunity.

When studying abroad, students typically meet lots of new people from all over the world, explore their host institutions, get to know the cultural life of a new city, go on outings, go to parties … in short: they gather new and memorable impressions and experiences. Despite the pandemic, last year at the mdw featured lots of student mobility.