We want to initiate a dialogue with graduates, former teaching staff, and students of the HfMDK. We want to keep in touch with you, win you as a friend of the University, and in the meantime, we endeavor to broaden the scope of artistic programs of study with your help through an alumni network.
As an alumnus or alumna of the HfMDK, you will receive the university magazine "Frankfurt in Takt" and our monthly events letter by email. Furthermore, you will be invited to academic celebrations at the University and to the "Kunstübungen - exercises in arts" of the "Friends of the University".
Please fill in the Alumni membership form and post or fax it (+49 (0) 69-154 007 161). Your membership in our Alumni network is free.
Please keep an interested, sympathetic but critical eye on the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts development. Attend our events, visit us, keep in touch! We would be delighted.
The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts has its origins in Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium, a foundation established by the Frankfurt burgher, Dr. Joseph Hoch, in 1878. The founding Principal Joachim Raff and his successors were able to attract renowned and internationally distinguished artists as teachers at the University, such as the pianist Clara Schumann, Engelbert Humperdinck, and the cellist Hugo Becker.
During the pre-World War One period, many students from all over the world studied in Frankfurt. Some of them were going on to become famous, such as Eduard McDowell, Percy Grainger, Ernst Toch, Otto Klemperer, Hans Rosbaud, and Paul Hindemith. After 1918, the Conservatorium attracted attention through new, innovative courses and contents which were promoted by Bernhard Seals, who was appointed Principal in 1923: these included founding an opera school, early musical education for very young children, courses for adults as well as the first German jazz class in 1927.
We are the State of Hesse's University for music, theatre, and dance and an essential institution in Hessian cultural life.
We act by our social mandate, and our community is international.
We profile ourselves as active partners in an extensive field of regional, national, and international networks and renowned cultural institutions.
The principles of freedom of art, generosity, intuition, and passion helped shape the University's spirit.
Individual self-determination, acceptance of divergent views, and critical awareness all play a role in our identity.
We generate innovation and interest in interdisciplinarity, and we provide freedom for experimentation, new working methods, and artistic research.
Our artistic, educational, and scientific practice reflects the need to protect, maintain, and reinterpret our cultural legacy, and we help shape contemporary developments.
We promote the participation of all citizens in the arts. We respond to changes in professional opportunities and rise to the challenges of demographic change, globalization, and digitalization.
The University's central task is to train students to become professional and socially responsible artists, educators, and scientists, both in the teaching of the arts and in scientific research.
Our educational concept is based on the values of the Enlightenment but at the same time takes 21st-century demands into account.
In addition to focused, targeted working, the successful completion of a study course is also dependent on the availability of free space for independent artistic practice, self-discovery, and creative leisure.
Students' intensive supervision characterizes the unique quality of the education provided at our University on a one-to-one basis, the employment of teachers who are artistically and scientifically active, the combination of theory and practice, and our diverse involvement projects and partnerships.
The University is open to cooperation with civil society to expand our study offer and raise funds.
We encourage lively discussions and facilitate participation and engagement. We treat each other with respect – in mutual recognition of individual skills – and create an atmosphere in which authenticity and creativity flourish. We see diversity as enrichment and do not tolerate discrimination in any form. We work actively towards the elimination of selfishness, bullying, and the abuse of power. We strive for improvement, using continued reflection. We see conflicts, errors, and mistakes as opportunities for change. It is based on this mission statement that we – the students, teachers, and administrative staff of the University – are developing our benchmark for quality and evaluation, and in doing so, shaping the future of our University.
Frankfurt am Main, February 10, 2014
The Institute of Contemporary Music (I z M) was founded in June 2005. The concept behind it is to act as an interface between the departments, offering teaching in contemporary music for all departments of the University. This includes workshops, colloquia, guest lectures, excursions, lecture series, and symposia. The I z M initiates interdisciplinary projects and collaborates with local and national institutions, including the Ensemble Modern, the Hessischer Rundfunk, the Frankfurt Opera, the Archive Woman and Music, the State Theatre Wiesbaden, and the Donaueschinger Musiktage festival.
The Institute mirrors events of local and national cultural life, bringing them into the University. In this way, the I z M promotes contemporary music both inside and outside University walls. It organizes regular events for the broader public, including the «Shortcuts» when teachers and students perform extracts from their ongoing work every two weeks. Since September 2007, the Shortcuts are also held on every third Tuesday of the month at the Museum Wiesbaden. Under the label «Ensemble I z M,» students work together on projects in different lineups. In winter semester 2006/2007, the Ensemble Modern and the HfMDK set up the master course.
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