Conference Re:connecting with Sarajevo Held in Vienna, in Partnership between the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) and the UNSA Academy of Music – (14.10.2025.)

The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna - mdw, one of Europe’s leading higher education institutions in music, hosted on October 14, 2025, a thematic conference titled Re:connecting with Sarajevo. The event was dedicated to the collaboration between the mdw and the Academy of Music of the University of Sarajevo (MAS), as well as a number of Bosnian-Herzegovinian artists and alumni of both institutions.

The conference took place in the mdw Festsaal and was opened by Rector Ulrike Sych, who emphasized the importance of nurturing inter-institutional relations between the two state institutions in the field of higher music education.

The first part of the program, moderated by Dr. Juri Giannini from the mdw’s Department of Musicology and Musical Interpretation, featured an introductory lecture by Professor Amila Ramović from the UNSA Academy of Music, titled “Music under Siege: Sarajevo 1992–1995.” The second part, moderated by Olivera Stojić, included a round table discussion with MAS and mdw alumni: Ališer Sijarić, Dean of the UNSA Academy of Music; Belma Tuzović and Belinda Krnić, professors at the Sarajevo Secondary Music School, pianist Tina Kordić, and mdw professors Alexander Swete (guitar) and Ursula Hemetek (ethnomusicology).

In the artistic section of the event, the first part featured a piano performance by Tina Kordić, while the second included vocalist Nataša Mirković accompanied by guitarist Pipo Corvino. The conference was organized by Juri Giannini and Anita Taschler from the mdw.

As part of the conference, Dean Ališer Sijarić held a bilateral meeting with Rector Ulrike Sych, during which agreements were reached on further cooperation between the two institutions.

This conference continues the 30-year collaboration between the Academy of Music of the University of Sarajevo and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The partnership began in 1994, during the war, initiated by then-dean of the Sarajevo Academy Osman-Faruk Sijarić and Michael Frischenschlager, Rector of the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst (the institution’s former name). At that time, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna invited students from the Sarajevo Music Academy to begin or continue their musical education in Vienna. The goal of the project was to “enable talented students to further develop their musical skills, with the idea that after the war they would contribute to the renewal of musical life and infrastructure in their home country.” Most participants in this project — scholarship recipients of the Austrian government between 1994 and 2000 — are now active and significant figures in the musical and public life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Inter-institutional cooperation continued in the following years through the engagement of mdw professors, among whom Professor Swete played a particularly important role as the initiator of the Guitar Study Program at MAS. This collaboration was further strengthened in 2020 with the signing of a bilateral cooperation agreement, and since 2021, through the Erasmus+ program, regular student and staff exchanges have been realised.

More information about the program: https://www.mdw.ac.at/veranstaltung/?v=59767&g=33843