The new – the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna is among the world's largest and most renowned universities specialized in the performing arts of music, theatre, and film.
At the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, we seek to select the most talented and dedicated students. This means that we have no quotas for international students, meaning that it is an entirely open competition for our places—the Viennese public starting calling for a conservatory of music as long ago as 1808. At the time, Vienna had no professional orchestras, other than the court musicians, whose services were used solely for church services and court concerts. Very few of the significant musical events were open to the public.
Three years later, an "outline for a music education institution for the capital city of the Austrian Empire" was published, calling for a "public institution, to be formally established and managed by the state."
A conservatory was not yet established, but these considerations led to the formation a year later of a Society for the Friends of Music in the Austrian imperial city. The purpose of this group was to promote Vienna's music with its initiatives and play a critical role in formalizing music education in Vienna.
The Society cited establishing a conservatory as one of their prime objectives, in fact, "the best and most important of all its objectives."
The University Library is the information center of the now. It provides the literature necessary for art and science and its teaching. It is an integral part of the university infrastructure and a guarantor for its range of services.
As an artistic and scientific specialist library for music, musicology, music educational theory, drama and directing, film and television, as well as arts management, it provides printed and electronic information carriers. This occurs in close cooperation with the university institutions, and the library also supports its users by offering advice and courses.
Moreover, the University Library provides these services for the general public and contributes to the development and further education of Society.
The campus at Anton-von Webern-Platz 1 is also home to the mdw's Communication Centre every day. The cafeteria here prepares a variety of dishes made from fresh, regionally sourced products for instructors, students, and employees.
We all try to pay attention to the environmental and social qualities of the products we purchase from day today. We limit our use of water and other resources when we're at home, and we give thought to the energy used by our appliances.
The Rectorate team that began its work in autumn 2015 has set out to bundle the multitude of effective processes and instruments of quality assurance that have existed for many years at the mdw into a quality management system appropriate to the institution. In this way, the new systematically does justice to its responsibility (as an autonomous university) to deliver quality and simultaneously lays the cornerstone for its future success.
We recommend that you start by reading the General Information. It contains everything you need to know about application deadlines, admissions, tuition fees and scholarships, the Erasmus program, and proving that you speak German at a sufficient level.
The Orchestra of the mdw is almost as old as the university itself. Since its founding in 1817 (as the "Conservatory of the Society of Friends of Music"), the Orchestra has cultivated the performance style and sound typical of Vienna. Future-oriented instruction, coupled with an understanding of the traditional Viennese sound, is highly appreciated.
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