WORKSHOPS, LECTURES, COACHING SESSIONS
The full isa experience is a combination of master classes, performances, the building of new friendships and networks, and extensive supplementary offerings of workshops and projects! Get inspired, broaden your horizon, and try to discover as much as you possibly can!
All offers can only be booked in combination with a registration for the isaMasterclasses!
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Career Strategy Consulting
Active participation:
all instrumentalists and singersThe requirements for being a successful classical musician have changed rapidly in recent years. Mastering an instrument now merely forms the basis of an artist’s 360-degree profile. Small group coaching with music manager Andreas Vierziger provide an opportunity to focus on your own career strategies. The contents of these sessions are flexible and can include topics such as concert booking, self-management, project management, creating and optimising artist materials, project development, positioning and branding, websites, marketing skills, networking, and beyond.
The sessions either develop flexibly and organically or you come with a specific list of questions or documents that you would like to revise.
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Preparation for orchestra auditions for strings
Active participation: all violinists/all string players
The workshop is mainly aimed at violinists. However, all dates are open to all other strings, who can also present a repertoire of their choice and receive coaching. The suggested repertoire for the course includes the solo and orchestral pieces most frequently requested at auditions. Participants who are preparing for future auditions are welcome to bring their own pieces to the workshop.
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Preparation for orchestra auditions for wind players
Active participation: clarinetists/wind players
The workshop is mainly aimed at clarinetists. However, all dates are open to other wind players, who can also present a repertoire of their choice and receive coaching. The proposed repertoire for the course includes the most frequently requested solo and orchestral passages for auditions, as well as the obligatory pieces (solo concerts) for the respective instrument. Participants who are preparing for future auditions are welcome to bring their own pieces to the workshop.
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The Acoustic Space as a Performer – Active Acoustics and Classical Interpretation
Ulrich Wagner, Pit Kaufmann
Active participation: all instrumentalists and singers
Discover how (active) acoustics can become a vital partner in musical interpretation. This workshop invites you to explore the creative and expressive possibilities of shaping sound in real time — and how the acoustic space itself can influence, inspire, and transform your performances.
Please bring your instrument and some sheet music.
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Contemporary Playing Techniques and Repertoire for violin solo and string quartet
Active participation: all strings and string quartets
(Passive) participation: all composersReceive instruction in contemporary playing techniques and work on contemporary pieces such as those required by international competitions. Please see the attached repertoire lists. You may also bring other works that you are currently working on.
Repertoire suggestions violin solo:
Bruno Maderna: Piece pour Ivry (1971)
https://www.musicshopeurope.com/pièce-pour-ivry-1971-nr%2013188600Michel Van Der Aa: Caprice (1999)
https://www.vanderaa.net/work/caprice/Zoscha Di Castri: Patina (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaiaFDC4avEKaja Saariaho: Nocturne (1994)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ5Ow0thscoJohannes Maria Staud: Towards a Brighter Hue (2004)
https://www.universaledition.com/johannes-maria-staud-2231/works/towards-a-brighter-hue-12095Oliver Knussen: Secret Psalm (1990)
https://www.fabermusic.com/music/secret-psalm-1174Reiko Füting: tanz tanz (2010)
https://oliviadeprato.bandcamp.com/track/reiko-f-ting-tanz-tanzHelmut Lachenmann: Toccatina (1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ip-ktKA08Ornette Coleman: Trinity (1986)
https://www.earsense.org/chamber-music/Ornette-Coleman-Trinity_-Fantasy-for-solo-volin/?rq=ct%3D2%26lid%3D-1%26p%3D2656%26rc%3D60304&ri=53123Repertoire suggestions viola solo
Salvatore Sciarrino(1947) Tre notturni brillanti, for Viola
Garth Knox(1956) Viola Spaces. Contemporary Viola Studies (vol. 1), for Viola
Stefano Gervasoni: Tornasole for viola
K. Saariaho: Vent nocturne (2006)
Repertoire suggestions violoncello solo
K. Saariaho “Sept Papillons” (2000), for cello solo
Rebecca Saunders,Solitude, for solo Cello, 2013
Kaija Saariaho petals, 1988
Georges Aperghis 4 recitations for cello solo, 1980 revised 2008
Repertoire suggestions chamber music ( string quartet)
György Kurtág: 12 Mikroludien (10 min)
Zosha Di Castri: String Quartet N. 1 (8min)
Felipe Lara: Corde Vocale (7min)
Elliott Carter: 2 Fragments (8min)
Marisol Jiménez: Sed de arcano (12min)
Salvatore Sciarrino: Sei Quartetti Brevi (20min)
Wolfgang Rihm: Quartet N.4 (20min)
Toshio Hosokawa: Silent Flowers (13min)
Thomas Adés: Arcadiana (25min)
Philip Glass: String Quartet N.3 “Mishima” (15min)
Julia Wolfe: Dig Deep (18min) -
Talking to an Audience
Active participation: all instrumentalists, composers and singers
Musicians are being asked more and more often to present themselves onstage not only with their instruments but also verbally. This workshop provides support, feedback, tips, and tricks for public speaking in the field of music. That which is learned can be practically applied at selected concerts of isaOnStage.
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Chamber Music for wind players
Active participation: all wind players
Chamber music encourages shared artistic experiences and provides an opportunity to discover your own musical personality in a new or different way. In addition, the workshop offers a great opportunity to network with colleagues and make new musical contacts.
Registered students will be divided into ensembles during an initial meeting at the isa. Further workshop dates and rehearsals will be coordinated with other class schedules (private lessons, etc.). Sheet music will be provided on site. There will be opportunities to perform in concerts.
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Chamber Music for strings and mixed ensembles
Active participation: strings, all other instrumentalists and singers
Chamber music encourages shared artistic experiences and provides an opportunity to discover your own musical personality in a new or different way. In addition, the workshop offers a great opportunity to network with colleagues and make new musical contacts.
Registered students will be divided into ensembles during an initial meeting at the isa. Further workshop dates and rehearsals will be coordinated with other class schedules (private lessons, etc.). Sheet music will be provided on site. There will be opportunities to perform in concerts.
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Sounding the Crisis
Active participation: all
Lecture and workshop: Climate Change, Society and Sustainable Perspectives in the Performing Arts
The global climate crisis is reshaping ecological systems as well as social, political and cultural structures. Within the performing arts, this raises fundamental questions about how artistic practice can respond to these transformations – both critically and creatively. The lecture examines key intersections between climate change, socio-political dynamics and the performing arts sector, addressing issues such as the ecological footprint of cultural production, emerging models of sustainable cultural organization, and artistic strategies for fostering environmental awareness. The subsequent workshop translates these perspectives into collaborative artistic practice. Through biosonification, biodata and biological processes are transformed into sound and integrated into collective musical experimentation. This approach creates an experiential space in which environmental processes are not only discussed intellectually but become perceptible and performatively explored through sound and shared musical engagement. Bring your instruments!
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Exilarte repertoire
Active participation: all
The Exilarte Centre at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna is dedicated to researching, preserving and reviving the works of musicians who were erased from cultural memory as a result of persecution and exile under National Socialism. In 2026, Exilarte will celebrate its 20th anniversary as well as 10 years of institutional affiliation with the mdw.
As part of the isa – International Summer Academy of the mdw, this work takes place in direct dialogue with young musicians: the workshop, led by the founder of the Exilarte Centre, Associate Professor Dr Gerold Gruber, offers students the opportunity to engage intensively with selected works from the Exilarte estates.
The focus is on practical work on the repertoire. Drawing on original sources, interpretative questions, stylistic features and aspects of programme design are explored collaboratively. At the same time, the workshop provides insights into the background of the works and the often fragmentary nature of their transmission.
The workshop is conceived as a fusion of artistic practice and historical reflection: the aim is not merely to reconstruct the music, but to rethink and reposition it as a living component of today’s concert life.
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Energising yoga for everyone
Active participation: all
Start your isaMasterclass day with an activating 45-minute yoga session.
Strengthening and balancing exercises (asanas) enhance your body awareness, whilst gentle stretching helps to release tension. By combining movement, breath and mindfulness, you’ll cultivate focus, inner calm and expressiveness.
Come as you are – with or without prior experience – and start the rest of your day feeling refreshed, centred and with a confident, upright posture, both inside and out!
Please bring comfortable clothing and, if possible, a blanket or towel.