Music Mediation and Concert Design

Music Mediation is an artistic, communicative and pedagogical practice. It creates occasions for people to encounter different forms of music and sees itself as a communicative bridge between the audience, music and musicians. Through various formats and procedures of an artistic, reflective-interpretative, practical and communicative nature, heterogeneous audiences are given different approaches to (classical) music and enabled to have aesthetic experiences. In addition to moderated, staged and interactive concerts, this includes workshops, introductory lectures, actions in public spaces, participatory community projects, long-term cooperations as well as media forms of mediation (podcasts, apps, padlets, etc.). The concepts include the different social environments and experiences of their audiences.

Music Mediation is at home within the positions of art and cultural mediation and touches on questions of music reception, curation, concert design, dramaturgy and concert studies as well as questions of marketing and cultural management, cultural studies, musicology and pedagogy. Music Mediation moves at and in these interfaces and can therefore contribute in different ways to the professionalisation of musicians:

• Finding an audience as an artist: Music Mediation as an artistic-aesthetic and communicative practice
• Becoming and remaining relevant as an artist and cultural institution: music (mediation) as a social practice
• Musicians as shapers of and in society

What does the future of the (classical) concert look like? What formats can music continue to use to find an audience? How can music be experienced as intensively as possible? Where does interpretation begin and end? How can music be connected – contextualised – with our living environment, our everyday life and social issues of our time? Can and do we want to give impulses through and with music?

What does it mean to be an artist in times of climate change, war and social division? In Concert Design, we address these and other questions of artistic self-positioning in the process of developing new concert formats. Diverse projects and seminars offer playgrounds for free spaces and understand the concert as a performance, as an open space of encounter to open up new associative spaces.
Developed concepts are performed in real practice, in cooperation with festivals, concert halls, music theatres, social institutions and other contexts. Music can pose questions, help shape society and promote a more humane coexistence – we as artists are particularly called upon to do this.

Concert Design places music in current contexts and sees itself as a new performance that considers the concert in its entirety from multiple perspectives. In addition to the musical programme selection, the staging also incorporates space, setting, light, other media and arts, current issues and the audience (society). On the way from idea to realisation, we encounter not only artistic themes and questions, but also fields such as dramaturgy and staging, entrepreneurship and project management.

An overview of the current elective course offerings in the academic year 2025/26 can be found here (PDF download in German).

Overview of elective courses offered in the previous winter semester 2023/24: PDF download in German

In the academic year 2025/2026, the third edition of the XPLORE_Competition for new concert formats is taking place at the HMTM.

You can find more information here: hmtm.de/en/competitions

This information will be added shortly.

An overview of the current cooperations and projects of the study area can be found here (PDF download in German).

Information on past projects can be found here (PDF download in German).

Cooperation Partner:

BRSO Education, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
https://br-so.de/education/mission

Christophorus Hospiz München
https://chv.org

Forum Musikvermittlung an Hochschulen und Universitäten
https://forum-musikvermittlung.eu

Gasteig München
https://gasteig.de

Kinderuni München
https://kinderuni-muenchen.de/sose-22

Mozartfest Würzburg
https://mozartfest.de/das-mozartfest/m-popup

Musik im Dialog am Institut für musikpädagogische Forschung, Musikdidaktik und Elementares Musizieren (IMP) der Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien
https://mdw.ac.at/imp/musik-im-dialog

Netzwerk Junge Ohren
https://jungeohren.de

OFFSTAGE 360, Bayerische Staatsoper
https://staatsoper.de/offstage360

Spielfeld Klassik der Münchner Philharmoniker
https://spielfeld-klassik.de

Iven, Christiane / Leth-Espensen, Jadranka / Stibi, Sonja / Rose, Maren / Pensel, Dominik (2022c). “Respekt – Informationen zu unseren Werten, Unterstützungsangeboten und Beschwerdewegen”.
Publikation der Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.

Stibi, Sonja (2022b). “Nähe aufbauen: Musikvermittlung als Auftrag und Chance.”
In: Auftakt. Zeitschrift der Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. Bd. 29, Studienjahr 2022-23, S. 24–26.

Stibi, Sonja (2022a). “Stream on!? Musikvermittlung im Spielraum des Digitalen.”
In: Üben & Musizieren 1/2022. Mainz: Schott, S. 36–38
https://uebenundmusizieren.de/artikel/stream-on

Stibi, Sonja / Imig, Andrea / Müller, Julia (2022). “Musikvermittlung trifft Kunst- und Kulturvermittlung. Ein Vergleich der Outreach-Strategien. Ein Gespräch zwischen Sonja Stibi und dem Museumsdienst Köln.”
In: Standbein-Spielbein. Museumspädagogik aktuell. Themenheft “Wo ist Museum? – Outreach: Vermittlungsarbeit an den Schnittstellen”. Hg. v. Bundesverband für Museumspädagogik, Bd. 118, S. 80–87.

Stibi, Sonja (2021). “Stream on!? Musikvermittlung im Spielraum des Digitalen – eine kritisch-konstruktive Bestandsaufnahme.”
In: OSF – Open Science Forum. https://osf.io/unjsh (22.12.2021)

Stibi, Sonja (2020b). “Between the artistic and the social. Outreach und Community Music in der Musikvermittlung.”
OPUS der Universität Augsburg: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-opus4-782659

Stibi, Sonja (2020a). “Out and about! Neue Hör- und Spielräume im Sinne von Outreach.”
In: Üben & Musizieren 2/2020. Heftthema “Räume gestalten”. Mainz: Schott, S. 6-9. https://uebenundmusizieren.de/artikel/out-and-about