Daniela Bartels worked as a school teacher at a comprehensive school in Berlin where she focused on group music-making with adolescents. In her doctoral thesis, she tackled the philosophical question of how musical praxis (in the Aristotelian sense) can empower human beings to achieve a ‘good life’ for themselves and help others do the same. Parallel to that, she founded zimmmt, a participatory choir in Berlin. At the University of Cologne, she taught democratic choir praxis. She then became visiting professor at the University of the Arts in Berlin and started her podcast Mehr als Töne – Musikpädagogik und Gesellschaft [More than Sounds – Music Paedagogy and Society]. Today, she teaches music education, group music-making, and community music at the University of Music Luebeck.
Lorenz Blaumer is a violinist, producer, sound artist, and music mediator. His freelance activities include work with orchestras such as the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern or the Munich Chamber Orchestra, as well as projects such as the sound art project Schaltkreismusik, the music theatre collective tutti d*amore, or the band Einshoch6. In 2020-22, he was also employed by Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland as a Youth Education Officer for Music. He has been artistic director of the Stegreif Orchestra since 2022. In addition to his role in the orchestra, he is a lecturer for interdisciplinary professionalisation at the HfM Berlin Hanns Eisler.
Charles D. Carson is an associate professor of musicology/ethnomusicology at the University of Texas in Austin, where he teaches courses on contemporary art music, popular music, hip hop, and jazz. His research interests include African-American expressive cultures, American musics, and music and tourism. He is a founding member of the international research collective, the Center for Research in Artistic Citizenship (CReArC), based in Malmö, Sweden. He currently serves as the Mike and Patty Erspamer Scholar-in-Residence for the Austin Opera. He has presented and published on a variety of topics ranging from smooth jazz to theme park music.
Sarah Chaker is an assistant professor at the Department of Music Sociology at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. She studied musicology and German Studies at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany. In her research, she currently focuses on street music, popular music (in particular metal), and music mediation. In 2023, she was awarded the Austrian State Prize Ars Docendi for excellent teaching.
Ana Čorić is a lecturer at the Music Education Department, Academy of Music, University of Zagreb. Currently pursuing a PhD in education at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, her research focuses on higher music education and the civic dimension of musicians’ professional identity. With interests spanning artistic citizenship, universities’ civic mission, music mediation, and interdisciplinarity, she brings her extensive experience to developing programmes for different audiences, as well as to international projects (AEC, Ethno Research, B-air Infinity Radio). She also serves as a lecturer at the Storytelling Academy in Zagreb and a music mediator at the kULTRA Music Festival in Makarska.
Lisa Gaupp is a professor of cultural institutions studies at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She majored in cultural and international studies at the Universities of Lüneburg and Barcelona before earning her doctorate in ethnomusicology at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (summa cum laude). She held an interim professorship in cultural sociology at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, which was also where she habilitated (venia legendi: sociology of culture and the arts). Lisa Gaupp has lived in Guatemala, Haiti, the USA, and Spain, served as organisational head of the 2009 edition of the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition, and has three children.
Immanuel de Gilde studied art, music, and media in Marburg and Amsterdam, as well as musicology in Vienna. In parallel, he worked as an assistant director and librettist in the field of music theatre for young audiences. At the beginning of 2022, following his involvement in the UFO – Junge Oper Urban project at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg, he took on project management roles (#bechange and #freesolo) at the Stegreif Orchester. He is currently responsible for the orchestra’s education sector and, as of early 2025, has been serving as a research associate at the Institute for Instrumental and Vocal Paedagogy at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.
Sari Karttunen is a senior researcher at the Center for Cultural Policy Research CUPORE in Helsinki. She is also a visiting researcher at University of the Arts Helsinki and an adjunct professor (in cultural policy) at the University of Jyväskylä. Her research focuses on the sociology of artistic occupations, as well as the construction and critical analysis of cultural statistics and other knowledge bases in the service of cultural policy. Her current interests include the practice of community art. Karttunen is an active member of the European Sociological Association’s Research Network for a Sociology of the Arts and currently serves on its advisory board.
A musicologist and sociologist, Irina Kirchberg is the executive director of the Centre for Innovation and Applied Research in Arts and Social Engagement (Artenso). She produced the first Panorama des pratiques de médiation de la musique au Québec (2020) and edited an issue of the Revue musicale de l’OICRM (2020) as well as an issue of Intersections (2025), dedicated to music mediation. As co-director of the Etude Partenariale sur la Médiation de la Musique (EPMM), she organised the Rencontres Internationales sur les Médiations de la Musique (2022). She is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Music Mediation (IJMM), and visiting professor at the Universté de Montréal.
François Matarasso is a community artist and writer whose work spans co-creation, research, consultancy and policy, and roots theory in experience. In 1997, after 15 years in arts projects with community groups, he published the first major research into the social impact of participation in the arts, Use or Ornament?, a study that established key concepts in the field. He has worked in some 40 countries for national agencies, foundations, arts organisations, and international bodies, including the EU, the Council of Europe, and the World Bank. He has been a board member of NESTA, Arts Council England, and the Baring Foundation, and held honorary professorships in Scotland and Australia. From 2020-23 he worked on the co-creation of new community operas in Spain, Portugal, and Ireland through the EU Horizon programme.
Shanti Suki Osman is a research associate for music education at Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg. Her research focuses on intersectional and critical music education, diversity, feminisms, popular music, and listening. Her PhD investigated the experiences of Black women* and women* of colour in German music conservatories. Recent publications include: ‘Hip-Hop and Intersectional Music Education: Learning from Hip-Hop Feminisms’ in It’s How You Flip It! Transcript, (2024) and ‘Ein dekolonisierendes Zuhören?’ [Decolonising Listening?] in Klangakt: Machtkritische Perspektiven (2024). As an artist, Shanti Suki Osman works with song, sound, and radio. She furthermore leads workshops on diversity in music and music education.
Axel Petri-Preis is a professor of music mediation and community music at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. His focus in teaching and research lies on topics such as the aims and ethics of socially engaged music making, the development of new concert formats, and curricular development. He is deputy head of the Department of Music Education Research and Practice, coordinator of the Music in Dialogue subdivision, and chair of the curriculum committee for the master’s programme in Contemporary Arts Practice. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Music Mediation (IJMM). Most recently, he co-edited the Handbuch Musikvermittlung [Handbook of Music Mediation] with Johannes Voit.
Sabine Reiter received a master’s degree in musicology and art history before completing an MBA in general management. Before joining mica – music austria, she worked as a cultural manager, primarily in the field of music theatre, and as a publicist for newspapers, culture periodicals, and the Konzerthaus Vienna. She has also worked as a researcher and was responsible for concert organization and public relations at the Orpheus Trust. In 2008 she joined mica – music austria, first as a genre expert and then as office manager; she took over leadership of the organization in September, 2009. She is a board member of the IG Freie Theater and she is also a member of the foundation board of the Arnold Schoenberg Center.
Anke Schad-Spindler is a researcher in cultural policy and, together with Aron Weigl, leads the Vienna-based research institute EDUCULT. She has been conducting international research and consultancy projects since 2006 and is a lecturer at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and at the Department of Sociology at Vienna University. Her expertise includes evaluation and impact assessment, cultural policy in conflict contexts, culture and democratic development, as well as culture and education. Anke Schad-Spindler is the Chair of the Cultural Diversity Advisory Board of the Austrian UNESCO Commission.
Barbara Balba Weber is a musician, cultural mediator, lecturer, researcher, author, and consultant in the field of audience and community engagement. As an expert in artistic music mediation, she combines her extensive stage experience as a trained soloist with in-depth knowledge of audience specifics and key players in classical and contemporary music. She has created and collaborated on numerous stage productions, including performances, commissioned works, and original compositions – many of them involving diverse social groups. Barbara Balba Weber heads the Music in Context department at the Bern University of the Arts, previously led the intercultural project Villaggio Culturale in Terra Vecchia (Centovalli/Ticino), and is the author of specialized literature and musical-literary essays.
Heidi Westerlund is a professor at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland since 2004, and adjunct professor at Monash University, Australia. Her research interests include higher arts education, music professionalism, cultural diversity, and democracy in music education. She has led several research projects funded by the Research Council of Finland, including the ongoing projects Music Education, Professionalism, and Eco-Politics (2021-2025), and Transition Pathways Towards Gender Inclusion in the Changing Musical Landscapes of Nepal (2023-2026).
Maria Westvall is a professor at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Denmark, and she is also the leader of Centre for Research in Artistic Citizenship (CReArC). Her research focuses on the sociological and artistic dimensions of music education, intercultural approaches, musical and cultural diversity, community practices, and migration. She has published her research in several books as well as in international scientific journals such as Music Education Research, British Journal of Music Education, Journal of Music Teacher Education, International Journal of Community Music, Música em perspectiva, El oído pensante, Intercultural Education, Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, Nordic Research in Music Education, Danish Musicology Online, and the Finnish Journal of Music Education.
After studying theatre studies and educational sciences at Ruhr University Bochum, Krysztina Winkel worked in the Education Department at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf-Duisburg from 2014 to 2018. She then completed a master’s degree in Arts, Enterprise and Development at the University of Warwick (UK) and was hired as a community producer at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry in 2019. Further research and community theatre programmes also took her to Italy, Zambia, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Since 2020, she has been heading the Community & Outreach Department at the Vienna State Opera. Krysztina is currently the Vice-Chair of RESEO – The European Network for Opera, Music, and Dance Education.
Annette Ziegenmeyer is a professor of music education at the University of Music Luebeck where she also serves as head of the Center for Teacher Education (Zentrum für Lehrkräftebildung). Her main areas of work and research include community music/music and social work, music in prisons and composition pedagogy (international perspectives). Beyond her active participation in music teacher education networks (for example Allianz für Lehrkräftebildung, Schleswig-Holstein; Kompetenzzentrum für musikalische Bildung, Schleswig-Holstein; Bundesverband Musikunterricht e.V., Schleswig-Holstein) she has also set up further training in music and social work/community music and co-edits the journal Diskussion Musikpädagogik.
