Dance Resonance – Artistic Attunement in Motion was the theme of this year’s symposium of the Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung [Society for Dance Research], which took place from 25 to 27 September at the mdw in spaces formerly part of the adjacent Salesian abbey on Rennweg.

What topics from the world of music and the performing arts at large captivate the minds of soon-to-graduate secondary school students? To what questions do current political, societal, and environmental developments give rise? On all this, the recent conferral of the mdw young research award to its third crop of winners offered some insights.

It’s packed—more than packed. The Joseph Haydn-Saal is filled to the last seat, with people sitting on the floor, perched on windowsills, and leaning against the walls despite the live video feed in the foyer and the hot summer temperatures. The programme that’s brought everyone here consists of welcoming addresses, a programmatic introduction, and a keynote, all revolving around questions of gender, performance, and the performative. It’s the official inauguration of the International Research Center – Gender and Performativity (ICGP).

It is music’s power to overcome barriers and leave people deeply touched that the association Musethica has to thank for its consistent development since the very beginning.

Over the past four semesters, 16 students have engaged deeply with forms of artistic expression, techniques, and processes, also pursuing intensive work on the deepening of their own artistic language, various modes of collaboration, the scholarly undergirding of artistic practice, the cultural landscape’s socioeconomic and/or socio-political structures, and competencies relevant to managing organisations and oneself.

For the 2024/25 winter semester, the Sounding Visions Award—conferred by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in cooperation with the mdw—has set out in search of exciting new concert formats.

The Danube Region extends from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, covering a total area of around 800,000 km². Its namesake, the Danube River, thus ties together a diverse series of landscapes as well as cultural spheres. The Danube has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for all manner of artistic output and a recurring motif inscribed on a multitude of musical works.

17 August of this year witnessed the 21st edition of Eurovision Young Musicians—the renowned competition for young classical musicians put on by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)—in Bodø, a European Capital of Culture in 2024. Leonhard Baumgartner, age 17, claimed victory for Austria with his outstanding performance of Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor.