High Performance in Art

Connected with the rich Viennese musical tradition and renowned cultural institutions such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts offers its talents the best support for a professional career.

Interior of the mdw
PHOTO: Daniel Willinger Photography

As one of the world’s largest and most renowned universities for music, theater, and film, the Vienna-based University of Music and Performing Arts (mdw) offers education for over 3,000 students from more than 70 countries worldwide. Its students are trained in 115 study courses in the fields of music, performing arts, science, research and music pedagogy.

For years, the mdw has continuously been at the top of university rankings and finally took first place in the field of music and performing arts together with the Juilliard School (New York City) in the QS University Ranking 2019. The mdw is thus the first Austrian university to achieve first place in a worldwide university ranking.

Student-centered learning and teaching, the promotion of individual abilities, scope for development and excellent, individual support and small-group training are just some of the many components which guarantee the quality of education at the mdw. One of the mdw’s central concerns is to enable students to develop their own personal definitions of an open concept of art along with the ability to engage in critical reflection.

In its more than 200-year history, the mdw has shaped numerous leading, world-class artists. The university’s graduates include stars like Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado and Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Today’s students benefit from the vast experience of outstanding teachers like Michael Haneke, Michael Schade or Marin Alsop, who lead their own classes or come to Vienna to give master classes. “The direct exchange with world-class artists is an essential asset for our students,” says Rector Ulrike Sych. Through its close ties to the Viennese musical tradition and renowned cultural institutions, its collaborations with prestigious concert halls, theaters, and orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the university offers its rising talents the best opportunities on their path from education to the first steps of a professional career.

The mdw’s 25 departments cover a wide range of subjects and, in addition to those for instrumental studies and music education, range from the newly founded Department of Early Music to the Department of Popular Music, from chamber music and church music to contemporary music, from music physiology to music therapy. In the field of performing arts, the Max Reinhardt Seminar (Department of Drama) is considered one of the best acting schools in the German-speaking world, and the Vienna Film Academy (Department of Film and Television), whose studios produce award-winning works, has made a decisive contribution to the international upswing of Austrian film in recent years.

Scientific research at the mdw is characterized by huge thematic and methodological diversity within the humanities, cultural studies, social and natural sciences and embraces, for example, the Department of Music Acoustics – Wiener Klangstil – for music sociology as well as the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies. The wide range of research fields at the scientific institutes is complemented by research centers with a focus on specific topics such as the Music and Minorities Research Center (MMRC), dedicated to ethnomusicological studies, the Center for Research on Arnold Schoenberg and the Viennese School or the exil.arte Center. The latter works on the reception, preservation, research and presentation of Austrian composers and performers, who, during the years of the Nazi-regime were persecuted, forced into exile, or murdered. Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are promoted and developed at the mdw, as in the internationally structured doctoral program Music Matters: Materiality, Knowings and Practices in Performing Arts, which has just started in the 2020/21 winter semester.

The university offers its students an excellent mentoring relationship with classes in small groups, individual support and one-to-one teaching. The mdw has several locations in Vienna at its disposal, including the Church of St. Ursula in the city center, the baroque Schlosstheater Schönbrunn and the campus on Anton-von-Webern-Platz in the heart of the city. Innovation is literally visible on this green mdw campus, with a newly erected state-ofthe- art building: The Future Art Lab not only provides numerous classrooms and rehearsal rooms, but a concert hall as well as the arthouse cinema of the Vienna Film Academy. In addition, the building features a special room-inroom construction method that satisfies the challenging acoustic requirements and provides ideal conditions for the Institute of Composition, Electroacoustics and Tonmeister Education: high-class recording studios and an experimental sound theater complete the new facility.

Due to the rapid transformation of the labor market, as well as overall societal developments that confront mdw graduates with new challenges, the university continually strives to refine the content it teaches and to adapt its teaching methods accordingly. Digitalization - whether in the choice of teaching methods, formats or the design of curricula and training - will be a priority in the coming years.

Young musicians and international students are attracted by mdw’s special programs, such as the University’s participation in the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA) and its newly launched ECMAster – a two-year joint master program for chamber music ensembles in close collaboration with music universities, conservatories and festivals. Lively international exchange also takes place at the International Summer Academy (isa), which for 30 years has been offering a rich program of master classes, seminars and concerts in the picturesque Austrian Semmering region. Since 2013, isaScience has been inviting researchers, art professionals and activists from all academic levels to take part in the mdw’s international conference for interdisciplinary research.

As an international university, it is the declared aim of the mdw to anchor transculturality, diversity and a living culture of equal treatment. Conscious of its socio-political responsibility, the mdw sets corresponding focal points such as gender, minority or exile research. “When our students leave this university and go out into the world, I’d like them to view themselves not only as artists but also as ambassadors for human rights, equality and transculturality,” says Rector Ulrike Sych.

More information:
University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna: https://www.mdw.ac.at