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Tanja Spatz appointed professor of ear training

Tanja Spatz appointed professor of ear training

4. March ’26

Our university has appointed Tanja Spatz as Professor of Aural Training with effect from 15 March 2026. Drawing on her extensive experience as a researcher and educator, having held posts at the conservatoires in Freiburg, Hanover and, most recently, Stuttgart, Tanja Spatz will contribute to numerous artistic and artistic-educational degree programmes at the HMTM.

In her teaching approach, Tanja Spatz always takes musical practice as her starting point:

»Musical practice forms the basis of all musical learning, teaching and research. Building on this, I aim to work with students to develop their aural skills on an individual basis. A reflective engagement with one’s own hearing can have an impact far beyond aural training lessons and greatly enrich future careers, for example as a musician or teacher. I look forward to expanding the interdisciplinary nature of this subject, strengthening its core (including through research) and, together as a team, further developing the ear training programme, which is firmly established and wide-ranging at the HMTM. Working with the many different degree programmes at the HMTM offers excellent opportunities to develop new teaching formats, explore them and share them with the wider world.«

In her work, Tanja Spatz bridges the gap between theory and practice. A key focus of her work to date has been on exploring methodological issues, including those relevant to pre-school and non-tertiary education. In recent years, she has concentrated in particular on relative solfège systems – methods used in music teaching where pitches are named using syllables based on their position in the scale.

Together with Moritz Heffter, Tanja Spatz also developed the ‘koala’ app, a digitally available, collaborative annotation tool that simplifies communication about music – particularly when approaching it through listening. The project was funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education and expanded through a fellowship from the Stifterverband.

Historical teaching methods also offer a wealth of points of reference for her work, particularly with regard to learning through musical practice. Here, Tanja Spatz is currently conducting research as part of a doctoral project (based at the Freiburg University of Music under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ludwig Holtmeier) on the hybridisation of thorough bass treatises and their teaching strategies from the second half of the 18th century.

In addition, Tanja Spatz has published »Solmisation, Improvisation, Generalbass. Historical Teaching Methods for Contemporary Music Learning« as editor (with Prof. Laura Krämer and Prof. Marcus Aydintan). This volume also includes an article she authored on the analytical use of solmisation syllables.

In addition to school music, Tanja Spatz also studied music theory (with Prof. Dr. Ludwig Holtmeier) and ear training (with Prof. Wolfgang Motz) at the Freiburg University of Music.