For the 2024/25 winter semester, the Sounding Visions Award—conferred by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in cooperation with the mdw—has set out in search of exciting new concert formats.

This past August saw the MIAGI Orchestra along on its seventh European tour, during which it played in renowned concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the Konzerthaus in Berlin. Under the baton of David Panzl (mdw), the orchestra’s young musicians wowed audiences with unique arrangements of material ranging from South African compositions to works inspired by the African diaspora.

The Danube Region extends from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, covering a total area of around 800,000 km². Its namesake, the Danube River, thus ties together a diverse series of landscapes as well as cultural spheres. The Danube has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for all manner of artistic output and a recurring motif inscribed on a multitude of musical works.

17 August of this year witnessed the 21st edition of Eurovision Young Musicians—the renowned competition for young classical musicians put on by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)—in Bodø, a European Capital of Culture in 2024. Leonhard Baumgartner, age 17, claimed victory for Austria with his outstanding performance of Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor.

The fact that microrhythmic phenomena have often been assigned merely subjective and sometimes contradictory descriptions as a “feeling”. However, highly developed algorithms and machine learning methods are now enabling the measurement of material such as funk grooves, solos by jazz saxophonists, and the Rolling Stones’ typical drum patterns right down to the millisecond.

The international gathering Critiques of Power in the Arts (25–27 April 2024), initiated by the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies and co-curated in collaboration with a network of critical friends from the realms of research and practice, stood out for unusual academic formats such as performances, workshops, and jam sessions that were held in various mdw spaces.