What do musique mixte, gender roles in Austrian film, and music mediation have in common? The answer is that all three are topics of mdw dissertations recognised with the 2024 Herta & Kurt Blaukopf Award. The purpose of this award, now conferred for the third time, is to provide financial support to early-stage researchers and recognise achievements by enrolees in the mdw’s academic doctoral programme. In conjunction with the award’s official conferral by Rector Ulrike Sych on 19 June, we spoke with award winners Elena Minetti, Irena Müller-Brozović, and Barbara Wolfram.
What are your dissertation topics? And what aspects of your research fascinate you the most?
Barbara Wolfram (BW): I did a quantitative study on how off-screen and on-screen data relate to each other in Austrian feature films from between 1997 and 2017. To be specific, this meant looking at whether the genders of film directors and screenwriters make a difference in what we see onscreen. As for what fascinates me, in all of my projects it’s how “reality” is depicted and narrated.
Irena Müller-Brozović (IMB): In my dissertation, I pursued the question of how musicians and music mediators can help to facilitate musical involvement—by which I mean strong, intense musical experiences—in concert situations. I’m fascinated by how Resonance-Oriented Music Education, which I developed based on the theoretical work of sociologist Hartmut Rosa, can also be transferred to other mediatory situations and hence has so many possible applications and avenues of further development.
Elena Minetti (EM): The research I did centres on the compositional processes behind early works of what’s referred to as musique mixte, or mixed music, which combines electroacoustic elements with live instrumental playing. What I investigated was how composers used writing to develop a new genre. The composers’ search for new possibilities of musical creativity was something that I found especially fascinating as I researched the processes by which they worked.
What significance does the Herta & Kurt Blaukopf Award hold for you, and what role does an award like this play in the initial period following one’s doctorate, a phase that’s frequently described as difficult?
IMB: The Herta & Kurt Blaukopf Award means an awful lot to me, since biographical factors (like the absence of music education doctoral programmes in Switzerland) caused me to enter the world of research only quite late, after many years as a practitioner—for which reason I’d never have dreamed of winning an award as a researcher. This award lends my research a special degree of relevance and visibility, and it also allows me to do new things—be it in terms of science communication or developing follow-up projects.
EM: Studying for my doctorate has made it possible for me to get to know new academic contexts and dig deeper into academic discourses. There’ve been moments of doubt and of uncertainty, like there so often are on long journeys, but my passion for research has always remained intact. To me, the Herta & Kurt Blaukopf Award signals recognition of this path that I’ve travelled and the quality of my work, and it’s also a powerful bit of encouragement for the postdoc phase.
BW: Doctoral studies include periods where you’re very lonely and often experience zero resonance. Such an award conveys great appreciation and recognition of how one’s gone through these phases and created something of value. It’s also an important step toward achieving visibility. I now hope that my research and my art will ultimately find their way into actual practice and help to make our society fairer and more diverse.
What are the next steps in your academic careers?
EM: At the moment, I’m wrapping up ongoing research projects—including a digital edition of letters at the University of Paderborn—as well as a fixed-term assistant’s post at the University of Hamburg, after which I’ll be working on my habilitation thesis and writing grants.
BW: I’m co-heading the artistic and academic project “Building Bridges in Polarized Societies by Means of Art and Research” together with Paulus Wagner and also pursuing research as part of the FWF/PEEK project “Confronting Realities. Working on Cinematic Autosociobiographies”. During the coming year, the short films developed as part of these projects will be screened at festivals—something to which I’m very much looking forward. I’ll also be planning a further third party-funded project during the months ahead in the context of my mdw PostDoc Fellowship.
IMB: I’ve been a professor of music mediation at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz since 2022, and I’m working together with colleagues like Axel Petri-Preis (mdw) to drive forward the music mediation field’s development at universities and academies through endeavours such as publishing the International Journal of Music Mediation (ijmm.world), which the mdw helps to fund.
