It was early in life that this passionate musician felt drawn to her parents’ piano—and today, she’s a frequently requested soloist, an enthusiastic continuo player, and a professor of harpsichord at the Institute of Early Music and Historical Performance Practice at the Anton Bruckner Private University of Upper Austria.

A Pandemic-Adapted Digital Symposium.

The academic year of 2020/21 marks the birth of the mdw’s Department of Early Music—and in the following conversation, department head Stefan Gottfried and deputy head Eugène Michelangeli speak about their approaches to historically informed performance and the initial projects of this new department.

Going to a new country to study is exciting, inspiring, and wonderful but also entails lots of questions, challenges, and uncertainties.

A central performance practice-related concern is the employment of period instruments or appropriately made replicas thereof, the investigation and mastery of which brings us closer to the music created by those who originally played on them.

The teachers at the mdw’s newly founded Department of Early Music, all of them experienced professionals with many years’ worth of expertise in their field, provided mdw Magazine with diverse insights into their relationships with early music.

Early Music in Picture by Theresa Pewal.

This spring, Universities Austria (uniko) launched the online campaign “UNInteressant? – Ideen, die unser Leben verbessern” [UNInteresting? – Ideas that Improve Our Lives].

Since its founding in 1963, the mdw’s Certificate Programme in Electroacoustic and Experimental Music (ELAK) has embodied an open, present-oriented, electronic sound-based platform for a wide range of practices in audible art ranging from musical composition to live electronics, sound design, inter-media installations, and performances.

“Mood” is the topic of this year’s Wien Modern festival, set to take place from 29 October to 29 November. And as in past years, several Wien Modern events are to be held in cooperation with the mdw.