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.

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.

With the “mdw young research award”, our institution has become Austria’s only arts university to recognise outstanding pre-academic papers and diploma papers (authored by students of academic secondary schools and colleges for higher vocational education, respectively) on music-related topics. The first awards ceremony will take place in September 2023.