isa, the International Summer Academy of the mdw, will take place this year on the mdw’s main campus at Anton-von-Webern-Platz, a new spatial setting that’s well positioned to offer students more opportunities—especially for creative exchange.

Those who succeed in being invited to participate in the International Summer Academy of the mdw—affectionately known as “isa”—can expect more than just master classes with top-flight artists. isa’s numerous event venues also invite one to discover the Semmering-Rax region’s immense culturohistorical significance.

With its 2023 theme of “We and Me”, the international exchange at this year’s isa will focus on the tension between the individual and the collective, between the personal and the communal. isa23 is taking a deeper look at music’s social components.

isaScience 2023 is celebrating an anniversary: ten years of isaScience, organised by the mdw! This year’s conference on questions of togetherness and hence also looks inward at the isaScience community.

At this year’s 32nd edition of isa, whose motto “Always anew” invited participants to place the positive power of creativity and the motivation to start over and reinvent oneself at the centre of their artistic work and reflection, Israeli pianist Yuval Shmila was among the students. Yuval allowed mdw Magazine to spend an entire day accompanying her.

For the 32nd time, isa will see the mdw bring together outstanding students and prominent musicians from all over the world in several history-steeped communities nestled amongst the Vienna Alps. The special combination of natural beauty and historico-cultural significance to be found in this region of southern Lower Austria provides the ideal backdrop for high-intensity artistic encounters.

isa21 – the 2021 International Summer Academy of the mdw took place from 14 to 29 August with “unlimited” as its theme. And indeed, the promise that such a theme would suggest was in large part realised thanks to a hybrid format and a comprehensive prevention concept.

With 30 years now under its belt, isa – the International Summer Academy of the mdw is expanding its interdisciplinary canon of programmes (isaMasterclass, isaFestival, isaScience, isaOutreach, isaOperetta) by isaDigital, which premiered in August of last year.

253 participants from 27 countries, 39 online events, and 22 hours of live streaming from 18 to 24 August: these are the hard facts of this year’s isaDigital.

"Just Play!?" was this year's theme at isa – the International Summer Academy of the mdw.