For the second time after 2023, I taught at the Summer School on Music Mediation at the Université de Montréal as part of an Erasmus Teaching Mobility project. This intensive week was held from 6 to 10 May at the Cité-des-Hospitalières, formerly Montreal’s oldest hospital, which the city now makes available to cultural and social institutions.

Among the twenty participants were Elisabeth Oberndorfer and Robin Prischink, two students from the mdw, who were given the opportunity to deepen their knowledge in the area of music mediation and exchange ideas with students from Montreal.

The programme of the Summer School consisted of lectures, workshops, and discussions. In addition, throughout the week, the students—with the support of mentors—developed a music mediation format that was presented at the end of the week at a public performance in the chapel of the former hospital.

In my two lectures, I first provided an overview of the practice of music mediation based on the newly published Handbuch Musikvermittlung (transcript 2023, edited by Axel Petri-Preis and Johannes Voit). Subsequently, I worked with the students on concert design and demonstrated ways of designing classical and non-classical concerts in an innovative manner.

As a mentor, I accompanied my small group in its work on a project that artistically explored the role of women in society and women’s rights. Here, the students envisioned an encounter between the operatic figure of Carmen and the French activist and feminist Olympe de Gouges, who in 1791 published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.

Aside from my teaching activities, the professional discourse with my colleagues Irina Kirchberg and Michel Duchesneau from the Université de Montréal was again incredibly enriching, and we are already working vigorously on the continuation and expansion of our cooperation.