+++ Study information days in December at the Departments for Music Education Innsbruck, Music Education Salzburg and at the Orff Institute - all information here! +++
The Mozarteum University's responsibility for W.A. Mozart gave rise to the founding of a forum committed to networking and stimulating activities related to Mozart. Ambitious annual programs invite scholarly debate and artistic performance, concert and music theater: the Forum as a Mozart place of experience and understanding, of tradition and questioning, of research and experimentation, perhaps also of provocation.
Mozart:Forum
Mirabellplatz 1
5020 Salzburg
As a special interdisciplinary and interdepartmental institution, the Mozart:Forum has been inviting visitors since 2021 with an ambitious annual program to meet and linger, to engage in scholarly debate and artistic presentation, to attend a concert and music theater, to read or even to attend a festive event: a Mozart place of experience and understanding, of tradition and questioning, of research and experimentation, perhaps also of provocation; if one wants to do justice to the personality of its namesake, this moment should not be excluded either. Historically informed, artistically exposed, scientifically reflected, transcended into the 21st century. When the Mozarteum began in 1841, fifty years after the death of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, a remarkable story began. 180 years after the Mozarteum's beginnings, the Mozart:Forum of the Mozarteum University is starting the 230th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's death with an impressive program.
Just in time for the birthday on January 27, 2021, also Spot On MozART went online; this project of the Mozart:Forum is dedicated in a special way to Mozart's music, in which the eye "listens in" and plays through visualizations that lead from the traditionally large cinema to the abstractions of digital light beams and spaces, from the large stage to the display of the smartphone.
The Mozart:Forum is an open space for everyone who is interested in the Mozart who still puzzles us in the 21st century.
1791 - the year of Mozart's death, which was the 230th anniversary in 2021.
All the works Mozart composed in the last year of his life were performed in 2021, both in their original form and as a source of inspiration for numerous newly composed formats. The first bibliophile yearbook (concept: Gernot Sahler, design: Gerhard Andraschko-Sorgo) was published in time for the first opera production of the Mozart:Forum 2021, La clemenza die Tito which celebrated its online premiere in a livestream on February 1, 2021, due to the corona.
"What high explosive power the term "free" and its noun "freedom" have, we experience at the beginning of the year 2022 in painful touching variety. Since March 2020, we have experienced as endangered by pandemic-related security measures the degrees of freedom of modern Europe that we have taken so much for granted. We became aware that borders can be closed again and that "new normalities" can force a cultural change. Creativity and labor were classified in system relevance and according to the degree of danger, stages and concert halls remained closed for months. In February of this year, an international war began in Europe. For an entire country, the freedom of self-determination and sovereignty is now at stake, it is a question of its own culture and identity.
The latter condition and expression of freedom. This year's theme of the Mozart:Forum seems more topical than hoped and offers a great opportunity to look across history at freedom and creativity, sovereignty and entrepreneurship. Eavesdropping on a long-gone classic and looking ahead to an uncertain future, audiences may encounter the core values of our culture and our sense of self. The annual program throws a special light on the modernity of the freelance artist Wolfang A. Mozart and his work. A heartfelt thank you to the Mozart:Forum for this exciting bouquet, which once again brings together activities from many different departments of the Mozarteum University. To all the great events, I wish a numerous and, above all, enthusiastic audience."
- Rector Elisabeth Gutjahr on the annual theme of the Mozart:Forum 2022
"In 2022, the Mozart:Forum of the University Mozarteum Salzburg focuses on Mozart's "freelance" activities in Vienna in the 1780s and at the same time wants to build a bridge to the present, to be a reflection of the last two years: Is art systemically relevant? In particular, how did freelance artists fare during the pandemic? Do we as a university adequately prepare our students for freelance work in art and science? Are we as a university actually free?
Vienna in 1781, Josephinian reforms: Toleranz- und Judenpatent grant equal civil rights to members of all confessions, the abolition of serfdom, new pension regulations, a new educational system, the easing of censorship (from 5,000 to 900 books). Mozart entered this radically accelerated, state-ordered Enlightenment with its enormous spirit of optimism in 1781 as an enthusiastic follower of this body of thought. Despite constant efforts to find permanent employment, Mozart was forced to freelance and was highly successful in creating a whole network of activities: Academies, teaching, freelance opera commissions, cooperation with the publishing industry etc. His environment even advised him to this form of existence: "the whole noblesse talks to me I should not let myself be led (before?) anymore". A highlight of the year (on 9. November) will certainly be the original performance of Mozart's Academy Concert of March 23, 1783, in which the University Mozarteum Salzburg will make its entire competence and diversity tangible in a Mozart marathon lasting several hours. Without claiming to be a complete analysis, this program and publication aims to provide food for thought on the topic of "frei.schaffend", to reflect on the concept of freedom in art and the practice of art, which is unfortunately not taken for granted in many places, to offer various approaches, and also to show the diversity of our university in its approach to this."
- Gernoth Sahler, Head Coordinator of the Mozart:Forum 2022
