This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
“WE AND ME”
The relationship between the collective and the individual will be in focus this summer at the 33rd edition of isa – the International Summer Academy of the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Personal autonomy and individual fulfilment are priorities that can stand at odds with those of community and collaboration – and with this currently being a major society-wide theme, it’s naturally also quite present in today’s performative and academic practice. Every high-calibre music ensemble necessarily consists of autonomous, distinctive, and strong individuals.
At the same time, however, ensemble music-making always entails proceeding in a concerted manner that can only arise from interaction. One effect of the COVID pandemic has been a (not always voluntary) trend toward isolation and withdrawal into the private sphere. But amidst a geopolitical situation still overshadowed by the horrifying war in Ukraine and in view of the more-than-trivial influence wielded by social media, there exists a simultaneously growing danger of co-optation by algorithmically fostered collectives.
isa23’s diverse formats invite us to explore possible approaches and modes of work that enable the tension between the individual and the collective to be experienced as a mutually inspiring challenge.
And in this, WE and ME is key!
A team of internationally renowned tutors has been engaged to help unleash creative energies in the master classes and workshops, while the isaFestival’s approximately 30 concerts will´provide an ideal setting in which to expand isa’s lived community by an eager audience.
isaCommunity invites especially people from the surrounding region to take part in isa’s creative explorations.
And directly following isa’s artistic programming, the international and interdisciplinary academic
conference isaScience – entitled “Sonic Ties: Rethinking Communities und Collectives” – will shed light on the questions raised by isa23’s theme from various sociological, cultural-economic, and cultural policy perspectives.
We’re looking forward to an exciting, high-calibre, and joyfully shared experience at isa23
Johannes Meissl
Artistic Director, isa & Vice Rector, mdw