Ever since he was very little, Paul Müller has been fascinated by singing and by theatre. And to this day, the Austrian-Swiss unites these two passions—winning over audiences when he takes the stage as a singer and actor and demonstrating his pedagogical prowess as a school textbook author and secondary school teacher as well as in his position as a senior artist for voice-related subjects at the Max Reinhardt Seminar and lecturer at the Antonio Salieri Department.

The 2024/25 winter semester saw baritone Thomas Hampson give a master class on Mahler interpretation at the mdw in collaboration with the Center for Research on Gustav Mahler and Viennese Modernism. Hampson, doubtless one of the foremost singers of our time, met Daniel Ender for a chat in the cafeteria on Lothringerstraße.

Why is it occasionally worthwhile to put aside your learning materials, leave the lecture hall, and experience history right where it was made? At first glance, university-level music students—frequently under enormous pressure to work and practice—would seem to have near-zero latitude for field trips. But it’s precisely these that can make a crucial difference: they make it possible to experience history.

Three performance programme graduates, one idea: it was in 2023 that Manuel Egger, Magdalena Pramhaas, and Sabrina Reheis-Rainer joined forces to found the wienerwald festival [Vienna Woods Festival], a series of events that unite music with nature in unique concert formats at interesting locations.

The reason for this conversation is a new critical edition of Arnold Schönberg’s sole completed work for organ, Variations on a Recitative op. 40, for Universal Edition.

In April of this year, the week-long festival “Balladen für einen Bulldozer” [Ballads for a Bulldozer], the first of its kind at the Department of Composition Studies and Music Production, offered an impressive platform on which to present and reflect upon contemporary music.

Early this June, the Wolkenturm in Grafenegg witnessed the spectacular concert Joe Zawinul’s Music Odyssey. It featured the Zawinul All Star Big Band, the radio.string.quartet and the Zawinul Legacy Band 3.0. Three days prior the Zawinul Legacy Band 3.0 and Tony Zawinul had given a workshop at the ipop.

This past summer semester, ipop – Department of Popular Music head Ralf von Appen taught a first-ever mdw seminar focused on the American singer Taylor Swift. Von Appen subjected Swift to close academic scrutiny together with academic assistant Mira Perusich and 23 students.

Starting with a concert in the Main Hall of the Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the MIAGI Orchestra—led by David Christopher Panzl—will be presenting entirely self-composed and -arranged material that will go on to be heard at venues including the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg as well as Konzerthaus Berlin. Panzl has been working together with the South African organisation for several years.

“Psst, psst, psst, psst” echoes enticingly throughout the gilded hall of the Schönbrunner Schlosstheater. White shrouds hanging above the stage allude to the moon, which lights what has just been rehearsed. Such were the scenes that one could observe in February’s rehearsals for the mdw opera production Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, which premières this March.