Jan Jiracek von Arnim, who was appointed as the mdw’s youngest-ever professor of piano in 2001 and assumed artistic directorship of the International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna in 2011, talks about proper breathing, dancing lessons’ beneficial impact on music-making, and his ambivalent stance toward competitiveness in the arts.

2020’s Beethoven jubilee inspired a great number of cultural events and musicological research projects in many places—especially in Vienna. And to conclude this year here, 18 students from the University of Vienna’s Department of Musicology (as part of the course “Beethovens Violinsonaten – Entstehung, Analyse, Interpretation”) join forces for an inter-university project with 15 performers from the mdw.

Or: How do we THINK ABOUT BEETHOVEN when figuring out how to MEMORIALISE BEETHOVEN during this jubilee year?

In the early summer of 2017, young pianists will converge on the mdw for the 15th time to prove their Beethoven expertise before an international jury and the Viennese public.