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.

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.

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.

In November and December 2022, it was time to continue deepening the ongoing orchestral collaboration between the CNSMDP – Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna ... this time in Paris.

Last November witnessed the release of Interploitation, this busy artist’s third solo album. Situated entirely within the cosmos of electronic sound, it bears witness to a radical step by an exceptional cellist.

Joe Zawinul was born in Vienna on 7 July 1932 and grew up not far from the mdw Campus in Vienna’s 3rd district. He eventually came to number among the 20th century’s most influential jazz musicians. And now, the big.mdw.band—the University’s big band at the Department of Popular Music—has taken what would have been Zawinul’s 90th birthday as an opportunity to engage with his music and life’s work in a three-semester concert trilogy.

Most people know the saying that dreams are often like soap bubbles and can easily burst. The music video A bubble is a nice friend to have, released in 2022, is about precisely such soap bubbles and how it’s extremely important to have dreams and also live them—even while being conscious of their fragility.

The mdw great talent award powered by Christian Zeller returned this year to once again put outstanding mdw talents onstage. At the final round on 12 May 2022, bassoonist Johanna Bilgeri won the 1st prize while violinist Paul Kropfitsch and mezzo-soprano Helene Feldbauer claimed 2nd prizes ex aequo.

It was a milestone in the development of the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology—but also of the mdw—when the stage of the Joseph Haydn-Saal came alive with a celebration of musical diversity on 24 May.

On 29 September, just before the semester begins, a new concert format will be celebrating its début in the Wiener Konzerthaus’s Berio Hall. This evening will see an interactive, trans-genre concert experience featuring classical music and electronic soundscapes connect the analogue world with the digital realm for the very first time.