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.

How can we help shape the everyday urban realm as musicians? How might a musical performance be influenced by conditions such as chosen location and the weather? mdw students report on the experiences they had as part of the seminar project Klang.Stadt.Klang. Straßenmusik autoethnographisch erforschen.

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.

For three decades until her death, Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos maintained a close connection with the mdw’s Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology. One approach to engaging with Ruža’s musical legacy is enabling her songs to live on through their performance by other musicians.

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.

Our university’s cooperation with the Munich-based classical recording label Solo Musica represents the latest step toward rendering the outstanding achievements of mdw students even more visible and audible. The first such project to have been realised is a recording with the Chaos String Quartet.

From 25 to 27 April 2024, the mdw will be hosting an international event centred on “Critiques of Power in the Arts”. The individual topics to be covered include epistemic violence, hierarchies in the arts, power in cultural policy and management, global asymmetries, identity in crisis and many more.

Since October of last year, a new leading team has been at the helm of the Leonard Bernstein Department of Wind and Percussion Instruments. Michael Pircher, Michaela Reingruber, and Martin Mühlfellner speak about ongoing projects, the style of teamwork they’ve developed, and the goals they’ve set themselves for the coming four years.