+++ Study information days in December at the Departments for Music Education Innsbruck, Music Education Salzburg and at the Orff Institute - all information here! +++
At the beginning of 2025, Florentine Klepper and Kai Röhrig's opera class at the Mozarteum University will bring Christian Jost's ‘Dichterliebe’ to the stage. The two set designers Carla Schwering and Yvonne Schäfer talk about the ideas and realisation of their visions for the stage design.
The performance of Vincenzo Bellini's opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi delivered a powerful reinterpretation of the masterpiece. Directed by Alexander von Pfeil, the production centred on the relentless feud between two rival clans and the profound despair of its victims. This staging transcended specific eras, placing the story in a universal, timeless setting that brought Bellini's dark vision of love and war to the stage with harrowing clarity.
Meral Guneyman is a versatile classical musician, with numerous releases, who is comfortable in both pop and jazz music, has transcribed many original works and is also an enthusiastic arranger and improviser. Her ability to move between classical and jazz with lightning speed and conviction is a rarity. In 2021, her arrangements of classic David Bowie songs were presented for the first time on ‘Steinway-Spirio’ - a high-resolution self-playing system of the highest quality.
Thesis - XYRA is a spatial design inspired by Phaedra's Love by author Sarah Kane. It explores themes of abstraction, surrealism, isolation, emotional intensity and existential reflection. Through the use of abstract spaces, the project creates dynamic and evolving atmospheres that invite viewers to question their perceptions and explore new dimensions of thought.
The winners of the excellent Master's theses 2022/2023 are Viktoria Anna Hirschhuber, Christiaan Josef Willemse, Giorgio Musolesi and Iris Vonolfen - congratulations!
Forgotten plays: A delightful invitation to immerse yourself in a day of staged readings, impressive installations, stimulating discussions, musical performances and contextualising videos. With forgotten voices from the past that meet us anew in the present and deal with our future. A staged reading marathon of seven theatre texts from three centuries of Austrian drama at the Mozarteum University.
Last Saturday, after four intensive weeks under the artistic direction of Hannfried Lucke, the International Summer Academy 2024 came to a very successful end with 55 masterclasses, 13 additional courses and 66 concerts. 550 participants from 53 nations (average age 21) were guests in Salzburg. Twelve up-and-coming artists were honoured and each received 1,000 euros in prize money donated by the City of Salzburg's Cultural Fund.
On June 28, the Department of Scenography invited to the annual tour, work show and summer party.
As a play, La Folle journée by the scandalous author Pierre Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais was banned in Vienna. However, Mozart and Da Ponte were able to suggest to Emperor Joseph II that the genre of opera would defuse the revolutionarily objectionable text and were thus commissioned to compose and write the libretto. The question of whether they did not in fact intensify the play in other ways is one that is posed anew in every production. With Le nozze di Figaro, Gernot Sahler and Alexander von Pfeil's opera class continued their Da Ponte cycle, which began with Così fan tutte in May 2023.
Masterclasses, concerts, operettas, contemporary composition and much more between Salzburg, Bad Ischl and Siena: an exciting academy summer awaits at the Mozarteum University!
On 24 May, "Doppler 15" will be the first concert by the newly formed ensemble for new music at Solitär. Kai Röhrig, the ensemble's musical director, flautist Leona Rajakowitsch and composer Anna Skladannaya (both students and founding members of the ensemble) talk about the genesis, current projects, challenges and the hunt for new, unheard-of soundscapes.
Sir John Falstaff is a natural phenomenon: his appearance is imposing, his demeanour commanding, his manner possessive. And most fascinating of all: the event does not care about rules, conventions or decorum, it simply exists for its own sake, in a sense for nothing but its belly.
Sarah Nemtsov, renowned composer and university professor of composition at the Mozarteum University, will receive the Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis 2025 for her outstanding contributions to contemporary music. The prize, which has been endowed with 10,000 euros since 2025, is one of the most important cultural prizes in Germany and is the only prize in the world to be awarded exclusively to female composers.
On 15 May, Giuseppe Verdi's last opera Falstaff celebrates its premiere under the musical direction of Kai Röhrig and directed by Florentine Klepper. The two artists provide exciting insights into the production and its creation in a double interview.
Elisabeth de Roo studied song and oratorio at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg and property and facility management at the University of Applied Sciences in Kufstein. With her play "Kein leichtes Mädchen. Käuflicher Liederabend", she addresses a sensitive topic and tries to encourage people to discuss it.
A city on the move - young, dynamic, full of contradictions. Nine students from the Department of Scenography embark on urban forays with their sketchbooks. From the beginnings of modernism to contemporary architecture. Experimental drawing on selected objects. Between Stalinism, Brutalism and Contemporary, new centre and periphery, indoor and outdoor.
As part of the International Summer Academy and numerous masterclasses, the renowned American pianist, teacher, Mozart researcher and Harvard professor Robert Levin has been a regular guest at the Mozarteum University for many years. From May, he will take up his teaching position at the Department of Keyboard Instruments. We are very much looking forward to it!
