To mark the Elemental Music Education (EMp) programme’s 40 years of existence at the mdw, 29 November 2024 witnessed an anniversary celebration in which EMp faculty members provided wide-ranging impressions of their field in its development, breadth, and significance. This event, framed by pieces composed specifically for the occasion in multiple styles and for various formations by Adam Smetana, began by retracing the field’s history—the story of how initial courses for five-year-old children grew into a wide-ranging subject area within the Department of Music Education Research and Practice whose interdisciplinary orientation toward all age groups now extends into all of the mdw’s music education as well as artistic and academic degree programmes. Most recently, 2023 saw the specialisations and modules offered as part of the IGP, MBP, and ME degree programmes joined by “Interartistic Music Practice/Elemental Music-Making”—one of four study profiles that can be chosen as part of the new Master of Arts in Contemporary Arts Practice programme, which is also networked with the new Master of Arts in Music in Society. And in addition to all this, there is also the extra-occupational EMp certificate programme—now in existence for 30 years and completed by nearly 400 students.
The core component of this area of work at the mdw is the Center for Elemental Music-Making, where teaching practice and research in connection with nearly 40 course groups provide several hundred individuals each year with opportunities to engage in music-making activities that are experience-oriented and participant-developed. The offerings here range from parent-child groups to activities in nursing homes with adults of very advanced age, from instrumentally focused small groups to school classes, from picture book-based music-making to music theatre, and from inclusive ensembles to groups comprised of professionals. At the anniversary event, the twelve-person Viennese EMp team presented socially relevant and music education-related concerns from their work.
The speakers at this celebration included pioneers Ruth Schneidewind and Hans Bucher, who spent many years here pursuing their life mission of establishing and expanding this area of work—which they did with joy, with great dedication, and in successful cooperation with others. Their aim of providing people of all ages with the opportunity to make music in context of considerate and esteeming interaction and free from any prerequisites has remained a principal concern of the present day EMp team.
Attendees were impressed and touched by the musical contributions of the inclusive children’s and adolescents’ band Young All Stars and a compulsory secondary school class, who expressed themselves on current topics such as climate change and their desire to help shape a positive future by way of their own originally composed songs. Moreover, the numerous guests had a chance to transform their fresh impressions into musical expression in music-making spaces, take in numerous short films showcasing interdisciplinary projects at a specially set up EMp Cinema, and gain insights into the history of this area of work, current course groups, and academic research projects in an exhibition space. The event’s exhibition will also be presented at the mdw’s Anton-von-Webern-Platz location this summer semester.
In their teaching as well as in their human interactions, the Viennese EMp team approaches people with considerateness and appreciation, assumes its social responsibility, and both cultivates and expands inter-university and international networks. Pursuing our institution’s third mission and community engagement via the inter-artistic approach of elemental music-making is an aim of ours not just in elemental music-making courses but also in cooperative projects at and outside of the mdw. Our students, for instance, have been collaborating for several years now with the mdw-based branch of the project KinderuniKunst and with the Summer City Camps to offer free elemental music-making workshops during the summer months that reach around 1,000 children between ages six and twelve each year. Together with the mdw’s Department of Music and Movement Education/Rhythmics and Music Physiology, we hosted 2022’s international conference of MERYC (Music Educators and Researchers of Young Children). And for many years, an area of work very close to our hearts has been cooperation with the mdw effort “Music in Dialogue”—such as via participation in isaOutreach and the mdw-wide project KlangBildKlang, which saw EMp team members participate actively with workshops at Cape Ten and Konzerthaus Wien as well as in the moderation of the project’s concluding concert. Moreover, it was our music-making groups for children and adults who kicked off the recent Beethoven flash mob at Stephansplatz.
In the future, this focus of work at the mdw is set to develop further with respect to pedagogy, artistry, and research through its interdisciplinary and universally open approach to music-making: in March 2026, Vienna will witness the 3rd StudEMP-A, a collaborative artistic project involving faculty and students from all institutions where EMp, Elemental Music and Dance Pedagogy, and MBP/Rhythmics are taught. Moreover, work is commencing on a possible complementary programme of interdisciplinary study for music teaching in primary schools, and several dissertation projects are also underway. In all of this, the core objective shall remain that of creating the greatest possible number of spaces conducive to music-making for everybody independent of age, origin, and the place from which a person starts.
