{"id":4068,"date":"2026-05-27T08:55:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mdw.ac.at\/internationalblog\/?p=4068"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:20:11","slug":"musical-connections-a-week-of-broadway-in-vienna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mdw.ac.at\/internationalblog\/2026\/05\/27\/musical-connections-a-week-of-broadway-in-vienna\/","title":{"rendered":"Musical connections \u2013 a week of Broadway in Vienna"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the past 20 years, I’ve been teaching musical theatre acting, writing, and musicianship in the US. For one jam-packed week in May 2026, I had the immense pleasure of bringing some of that training to students in three different departments at mdw, a joyful exchange of cultures and techniques that fostered new connections between artists, countries, and within mdw itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If an American teaching a quintessentially American art form in one of Europe’s greatest conservatories seems improbable, here’s briefly how it came about: in the spring of 2024, I was on a teaching break from Manhattan School of Music<\/a> (MSM), where I am on the Musical Theatre faculty. Both my husband (an Austrian citizen) and I were working on book projects, and we figured that since we could write anywhere, we should try living abroad for a couple months, and Vienna was the obvious choice. We fell in love with the city (of course) and made many wonderful new friends in the theatre and music communities; after an incredible nine weeks, we were sad to have to bid the city auf Wiedersehen<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late in our stay, since MSM and mdw are \u201csister\u201d institutions, I was able to take a tour of just a small part of mdw (with the generous Bojana Tesan, head of the International Office) and to meet mdw faculty Annette Fischer at the Max Reinhardt Seminar<\/a>. It was quickly clear that we shared a musical point of view and a teaching philosophy, and we hoped an opportunity would arise for us to work together someday. Almost exactly two years later, that opportunity came to fruition, thanks to Annette Fischer, her colleague at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, Paul M\u00fcller, and Katharina van Linthoudt in the International Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Andrew with mdw faculty and Max Reinhardt Seminar students<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was excited when Paul M\u00fcller originally arranged for me to work with 20 students, and amazed when he kept telling me more and more students from different departments were asking if they could participate (his organizational skills are, I’ve since learned, legendary). During five days, I ended up having master classes or one-on-one coaching sessions with about 40 students and got to meet faculty from the Reinhardt Seminar, the Vocal Studies program<\/a>, and the Salieri Institute<\/a>, a perfect cross-section of the programs mdw offers to singers, actors, and future teachers. As someone who has been in academia for a while, it was especially meaningful to me to learn that new connections within mdw sprung up because of my visit, with the classical singers \u201ctraveling\u201d down the hall to the Reinhardt acting studios for the first time, or faculty members from different departments meeting each other in person. Since musical theatre is a collaboration between artists of many different disciplines, it was fitting that teaching it should be, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
With students of the vocal studies and mdw faculty Paul M\u00fcller (left)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The students I worked with were universally eager, open, fearless and creative. For the actors, it meant some of them singing (in public!) for the first time, dealing with finding their notes, staying with a pianist, and making the honestly quite strange act of moving from speaking to singing in the middle of a scene feel truthful, natural, and inevitable. It was terrific to see how quickly they jumped in to moving a song around a room, setting up imaginary scenery, using their physicality to help tell the story, and treating a song as they would a \u201cnormal\u201d scene. The opera students came in with totally different concerns, mostly how to sing the Broadway repertoire and \u201cnot sound like an opera singer.\u201d We were able to speak more technically about standard musical theatre vocal production, and the reason it attempts to sit closer to a spoken sound: namely, to try to seamlessly bridge that gap between speaking and singing, as actors in musicals have to do dozens of times in a show, hopefully fooling the audience into not noticing exactly when it happens. And the Salieri students, who came from different musical and vocal backgrounds, were eager to talk about performance practices. It was a great reminder for both them and me that these songs were not meant to be performed in a recital or classroom setting, but as musical scenes that want to be staged, however minimally. One theme that emerged was how to forget about the audience, or, more accurately, to trust that audiences are smart and will understand what you’re feeling without your having to tell them, or to include them too aggressively. Allowing an audience to read your mind, to step into your shoes without overly explaining everything to them, is the most beautiful and satisfying experience both for actors and audience members, a reminder that everyone in the room shares the same human experience. It was very moving to see these young performers make that adjustment so easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Andrew and student Beate Korntner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Though I grew up as a classical pianist, I was drawn to the theater for the human connections that storytelling can bring, both between performers and between performers and audiences. This week at mdw allowed me to witness those kind of connections in a new light, with performers from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures coming together to tell stories that are, at their heart, about what it means to be a human being. In times like these, we need people committing to learning how to do that themselves and to foster those skills in others. I hope to stay in touch with the wonderful faculty and students I met, who inspired me with their creative energy and open curiosity. Thanks to everyone who made this exchange possible \u2013 mdw’s commitment to international collaborations is truly a role model for other institutions. I look forward to stopping by next time I’m in the City of Music!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
mdw faculty Silvia Vaterl, Andrew Gerle, mdw faculty Paul M\u00fcller and Annette Fischer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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