How long is a minute? A fleeting moment or rather an eternity? In fact, each of us perceives time differently. For some, a minute at the bus stop drags on endlessly, for others it races by like a world record attempt.
It is with great regret that we announce the passing of Dr. Thomas Daniel Schlee, a former member of the University Council, on 10th November 2025. His unexpected death, at the age of 68, has left us deeply saddened. We extend our heartfelt sympathies to all those who were close to him.
‘Reflections’ is a project that pursues an egalitarian approach to the development and exploration of the arts: works by female composers from earlier centuries that have been forgotten or overlooked, rarely heard or never heard in this country are reflected in the diverse musical languages of today's musicians.
The Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen (AEC) is a trans-national organisation with the aim of networking music colleges across Europe and jointly maintaining high international standards of education. Between 5 and 8 November 2025, the AEC will hold a congress at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, which will focus on topics such as leadership, resilience, professional skills and health care within university-level music education.
Following a successful masterclass and a sold-out concert with the Bläserphilharmonie Mozarteum Salzburg in March 2025, Christian Thielemann will take up a position as Professor of Orchestral Conducting at the Mozarteum University in October 2026. Violinist Lisa Batiashvili and pianist Claudio Martínez Mehner will also begin teaching in the 2026/27 academic year.
Composer Noh SeungJu, who was born in Seoul (South Korea) and is currently resident in Salzburg, has been awarded the 2025 Music Grant by the State of Salzburg. Congratulations!
Save the date: The International Summer Course is in preparation and will take place in Salzburg from July 5-11, 2026.
Alek Niemiro, a graduate of the Thomas Bernhard Institute's directing programme, has been awarded the new Austrian Art Alumni Award for his project ‘Last Hour of Resistance’. Starting this year, the award will be presented annually by the BMFWF and Austrian art universities to selected outstanding graduates, and comes with a twelve-month scholarship worth €24,000. Congratulations!
We are proud to announce that, after two and a half years of construction work, the Mozarteum University’s newest building, located in Schwarzstraße 36, is now complete and officially open! This exciting new space, with a surface area of 1,895m2, is dedicated to teaching, rehearsing, research, advancement and appreciation of the arts, and digital arts.
Cycles, Seasons, Sounds of the Future: November sees the second staging on the interdisciplinary ORA – Original Sound Festival at the Mozarteum University Salzburg.
Franziska Wallner, Head of the Institute for Coaching & Career at the Mozarteum University, on resilience, careers and change in musicians' education.
In the summer semester of 2024, students studying design: technology.textiles developed the ‘House of Nice’ – a conceptual pop-up store that uses handmade products to open up individual perspectives on the theme of time. The bachelor's students developed, designed and produced products and presented them in the form of a perspective shop.
The Platform on Politics of the Past at the Mozarteum University Salzburg deals with cultures of remembrance from the 1920s to the 1990s. The critical reflection on the university's political past, especially during the periods of Austrofascism, National Socialism and the post-war era, plays just as important a role as art projects against forgetting and for greater awareness. Researchers are currently conducing a citizen research project that invites the local community to share relevant documents and contemporary accounts.
The artist and art pedagogue Ao. Univ.-Prof. MMag. Bernhard Gwiggner has been awarded the 2025 Ars Docendi prize for teaching excellence by the Austrian state. The interdisciplinary cooperation "tradition2go: zwischen kultur und wahnsinn" ("between culture and madness") was a collaboration during the 2023/34 academic year between the Sculpture Class at the Mozarteum University and the Salzburg Museum. The project went hand in hand with the exhibition "Masks, Traditional Costumes, Cult Objects - 100 Years of Folk Culture" at the Salzburger Monatsschlössl Hellbrunn.
Competence in sustainability is competence for the future. Artists and educators carry a great responsibility but also have great potential for not only reflecting on social change but also contributing to it. The start of academic year 2025/2026 brings with it the start of a new elective studies block in Art & Sustainability, for which students can obtain a supplementary certificate. It offers the chance to explore the complex relationship between sustainable developments in our university and society at large, and artistic and scholarly practice.
The Boy Gobert Prize for young actors in the Hamburg theatre scene, worth €10,000, has been awarded to Payam Yazdani, a 2025 graduate of the Mozarteum University’s Thomas Bernhard Institute. We congratulate him on his success!
