General
General

General

Survey on Diversity in Music Completed

The results of my diversity survey for music students are now available. From April through September 2023 I conducted an anonymous poll among students from German universities and conservatories, inquiring their opinions and attitudes towards various issues in music business and professional music education. In particular, there were questions regarding the diversity of composers and repertoires, researchers and teachers, academic topics, and conceptions in musicology and music theory. I am sharing an overview of the results here, hoping that these will enable some insights and can maybe encourage to develop ideas and strategies for making curricula and course contents more diverse.

» Have a look at the survey results (in German language)

Debating the Concerns of Music Adjuncts

I am honoured to chair an online panel discussion as part of the 14th Bundeskonferenz der Lehrbeauftragten an Musikhochschulen, the federal conference of adjunct teachers at German music universities, on Saturday 28 October, 1–3 pm. Speakers will be Christian Fischer (HfM Trossingen), Sebastian Haas (unisono), Andreas Keller (GEW), Uwe Ruß-Obajtek (Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg), Holger Mann (SPD) and Stephan Seiter (FDP). Looking forward to a productive (and perhaps controversial) exchange of thoughts!

Remarks on Sustainable Academic Teaching

I wrote a few lines again on the subject of precarious working conditions in professional music education. In a recent article for the NOIES Musikszene NRW magazine, I focus on the situation of adjunct teachers at German music universities. This part of faculty manage 40–60 percent of the overall teaching load, mostly ineligible for social welfare schemes, while taking all the entrepreneurial risks of freelancing. After summarising the origins of this academic grievance, I outline some perspectives and possible solutions to the problem.

Music for Young Harpists

Glad to announce that my short composition Song without Words has been selected by the German Harpists Association as a compulsory piece in their 2024 harp competition for participants aged up to 12 years. The piece is dedicated to my children and exists in three alternative versions for solo harp, guitar, and piano. For everybody interested, the music is freely available online.

Scriabin and Medtner as Counterparts

I have been revisiting my paper from last year’s Scriabin @ 150 conference in Reading, hopefully to be published soon in a collective volume alongside other contributions from this event. The article discusses the relationship between the Muscovite composer-pianists Alexander Scriabin and Nikolai Medtner, who are often considered aesthetic antagonists and have rarely been researched in a mutual context. I explore biographical links and examine a couple of musical examples, revealing some latent influences and intercommunities between the two protagonists that merit a closer look. A preliminary version is now available online—please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!