May 17, 2024, 9:30h–18:30h
University of Music and Performings Arts Vienna, Lothringerstraße 18 (seminar room LS0146, Center for Research on Gustav Mahler and the Viennese Modernism), 1030 Vienna

This workshop focuses on the often neglected aspect of musical commissions – a specific form of patronage, which Louis Epstein defined as “premeditated collaborations between patrons and composers to produce new music,” resulting from “formal solicitations, often written, sometimes legally binding” (L. Epstein, The Creative Labor of Music Patronage in Interwar France, Boydell, 2022). Speakers from Austria, Germany, Hungary, the UK, and the US will present their research. The topics range from the early seventeenth century to the present, and from Europe to North America. On this basis, we will discuss, for example, questions of hierarchy and power, the interaction of economic, political, and cultural actors, or the creative possibilities of the individual in collaborative constellations.

Keynote: Louis K. Epstein (St. Olaf College, Northfield/Minnesota)

Organization: Elisabeth Reisinger (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Department of Musicology and Performance Studies; FWF Project “Performers as Commissioners of New Music in the Twentieth Century”)

Guests are welcome. There is no fee, but we ask that you register by May 9, 2024 via email at: Johanna Stacher, stacher-j@mdw.ac.at (Please also indicate if you plan to join us for lunch and/or dinner so that we can make reservations.) Upon registration, you will receive some reading material that will serve as a joint basis for discussion.