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.

This music therapist’s five-month leave period to earn her degree after the fact coincided with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Sibylle Kefer explains to mdw Magazine why she looks kindly on some aspects of last year’s sudden standstill—and why, for her sixth album, she no longer wants to be dependent on others.

This versatile artist gathered her initial experiences with community outreach during a voluntary social year in Costa Rica. And by now, she can look back upon numerous successful projects—like developing the All Stars Inclusive Band (the mdw’s first inclusive ensemble) and assuming musical direction of the Wiener Festwochen festival opener.

This year will see the International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna held for the 16th time. Its sixth edition, which took place around 40 years ago, was won by an exceptional young musician who can now look back upon an outstanding career as a concert pianist, chamber musician, and university professor: we’re talking about the mdw’s own Avedis Kouyoumdjian.

For the Greco-German stage director Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos, settling on theatre was a big step.

The exceptional violinist Giulia Brinckmeier discovered her talent for working as a concertmistress more or less by chance.

From educator to cultural manager to one of Austria’s best-known and most highly regarded cake designers.

Even at the young age of 12, Bine Katrine Bryndorf was convinced that the organ was her future.

An exceptional composer on a quest for new worlds.

The links between the mdw (including its institutional predecessors) and the Far East have long been quite close.