In this issue’s special on “Architecture and Sound”, we introduce you to a new architectural jewel on the mdw Campus: the Future Art Lab (FAL). With its modern infrastructure, this newly completed building provides an optimal learning environment for our students. We conceive of the Future Art Lab as a lively space of communication that will enrich the mdw Campus by numerous opportunities for interdisciplinary cross-pollination and new synergies. The heads of the departments now located there—Film Academy Vienna, the Department of Piano, the Department of Composition, Electroacoustics and Tonmeister Education, and the Joseph Haydn Department (Chamber Music Division)—tell us what plans and hopes they have for this new location. The architect duo Pichler & Traupmann talk about architecture’s artistic components and about the Future Art Lab’s acoustic heart. And finally, an atmospheric photo essay by Hertha Hurnaus provides some initial impressions of this multifaceted building, which is now also home to the mdw’s Artistic Research Center (ARC).
Additionally, this issue of our magazine offers insights into the professional challenges faced by Tonmeisters and the issues currently being tackled by the mdw’s new subject area of Voice Research. The teams of isa – International Summer Academy of the mdw and isaScience provide a survey of the opportunities and possibilities revealed by the digital realisation of both formats this past summer. And Ioannis Christidis, who works at the mdw’s Music and Minorities Research Center (MMRC), examines the musical experiences and practices of Syrian refugees and exiles.
I wish you an enriching read and hope that you will arrive happy—and above all healthy—in 2021!
