From August 15 to 16, 2026, the 2026 Festival Academy, under the title FRAUEN.FESTSPIEL.PRÄSENZ*, will focus on the visibility, history, and future of female playwrights and composers at the Salzburg Festival. The two-day symposium will place pressing questions about representation, power structures, and the formation of the canon at the center of the debate.
The Belarusian flutist, conductor, cultural manager, and Honorary Professor at Mozarteum University, Maria Kalesnikava, delivered the opening speech at the Salzburg Festival last weekend. Her moving reflections on freedom, responsibility, and the unifying power of music deeply resonated with the audience, underscoring the vital role of culture in challenging times.
The City of Salzburg recently recognized four projects featuring interdisciplinary ideas for Salzburg. One of the projects, titled “Stadt Raum Hörbar” (City Space Audible), submitted by Florian Brand, Ulrike Hatzer, Carla Stenitzer, and Karen Werner, invites the people of Salzburg to explore the sounds of their city.
Amélie Niermeyer Professor at the Mozarteum University and long-time director of the Thomas Bernhard Institute, will take up the position of President of the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding in Munich on 1 October 2026. In her new role, the internationally renowned director will lead the largest educational institution for theatre professions in the German-speaking world. We extend our heartfelt congratulations!
The Mozarteum University Salzburg mourns the passing of actor and theatre director Lutz Hochstraate, who died on 29 March 2026.
An applicant in a wheelchair, with physical and speech impairments, wishes to study acting. Doubts among the teaching staff, uncertainty about how to interact with him, organisational hurdles – and yet the commitment not to judge too hastily, but to look more closely: at his enthusiasm for acting, his spontaneity, his ability to work in a group, and his sense of humour.
The Applied Theatre students are showing try-outs of their work in the module "On Representation - Who cares, who speaks?". Together with co-researchers, accomplices and so-called experts of everyday life, they try to find out which untold stories should be given a stage.
This winter semester, directing students at the Thomas Bernhard Institute are working together with acting students from three different years and in cooperation with scenography students to develop productions based on an examination of theatre texts from antiquity.
Establishing and developing the profile of an ensemble is one of the most demanding and, at the same time, most appealing challenges in artistic development. Many globally successful ensembles were formed during their studies, laying the foundation for an international chamber music career. However, existing study programmes alone can only provide limited incentives and framework conditions for this. The ensemble scholarship is the answer to this: convincing project proposals receive financial support for a period of one year to realise specific artistic projects.
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!
Cristina Giurgea, alumna of the Master's programme in Applied Theatre at the Mozarteum University’s Thomas Bernhard Institute, has received a €12,000 grant – awarded annually by the State of Salzburg in the field of Performing Arts – to support her work at the intersection of research theatre and performance art in Salzburg. Congratulations!
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!
Theater-interested, -enthusiastic and -newcomers are welcome! Everyone together, citizens, people who live in Salzburg, students and life artists try out together.
From 22 to 28 June, the Mozarteum University hosted the national competition for German-speaking drama students, in conjunction with the 36th meeting for the promotion of young drama talent in Salzburg. The ensemble prize ‘Raus aus der Bubble’ (Out of the Bubble), worth 3,125 euros, went to the 4th year acting class of the Thomas Bernhard Institute and their production “Jederman” (Everyman), directed by Hanna Binder. Amadeus König was awarded in the category ‘Strong Performance’.
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.
From 22 to 28 June 2025, around 200 drama students from 18 universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland will gather at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg for the national competition for German-speaking drama students. The event is being hosted by the Thomas Bernhard Institute – sending a clear message: ‘Get out of the bubble’.
Mariia Tkachenko lived in Kyiv until March 2022, where she received singing and violin lessons as a child and has already appeared in several TV productions. Her acting studies at the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television were interrupted by the war in Ukraine.
