“What we see of the conductor at the rostrum is really just the tip of the iceberg. A deeper look reveals a veritable pyramid of competences made up of skills ranging from music to management,” says Alois Glaßner, head of the mdw’s Department of Conducting. mdw Magazine spoke with Glaßner about the University’s comprehensive training of conductors, the conducting programme as such, and the profession’s ongoing transformation as well as the department’s own plans.

When we get goosebumps at a concert, when our eyes tear up at the words we hear spoken onstage, or when we hold our breaths out of excitement during some other type of performance, what we’re experiencing are one-of-a-kind moments that can’t be reproduced in all their aspects—or, for that matter, repeated in exactly the same way.

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course…” Homer’s epic poem that recounts the wide-ranging journeys of Odysseus begins with an invocation of the muse (here in the English translation by Robert Fagle). She is asked to tell us of these heroic deeds. We will listen, promises the voice in the prologue, and the Odyssey begins…

We live in an age of information. Never before has so much information been produced, and never before has obtaining quick access to it been so easy. Information is everywhere—and it’s often said that we’re dealing with a flood of it. At the same time, untold quantities of information are lost on a daily basis, with much content being ephemeral and/or generated only for the sake of a brief moment. Thereafter, it disappears into the infinite depths of the Internet.

Ever since antiquity, at various times and to varying degrees, suicidality has been present as a topic—as one can find documented in countless songs, opera arias, and even some instrumental music.

After eighteen months of more alone-time than usual, including some long periods of purely digital contact with others, more than a few of us have ended up with a new take on how we feel about community and the presence of others.

On 26 January 2022, the mdw Children’s Choir will present the fruits of this past year’s labours in an atmospheric end-of-semester concert at the Future Art Lab. Astrid Krammer, who teaches at the mdw’s Anton Bruckner Department, reveals how a rehearsal of this ensemble looks and why the benefits of its offerings extend beyond the participating children.

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.