Mission

The arts reflect and influence communities, individuals and their values. They can foster creativity, diversity and pluralism by shared human experience that reveals underlying shared interests across what are often more apparent differences. At the same time, history has taught us that there is a need for safeguards for freedom of artistic expression and against its nationalistic or xenophobic abuse. The arts also reflect the temper of the times, thereby helping to identify some social challenges. Iconic artists, in particular, do have leadership opportunities. The Chumir Foundation and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (VPO) seek to develop opportunities for music to improve and enrich lives and provide artists with a platform which they can use to positively impact society.

Scope and Agenda

The Chumir Foundation and the Orchestra are collaborating on the development and implementation of a program that stimulates the examination of these potential roles of the arts as part of the curriculum of the VPO Academy that opened in the Fall of 2019 to educate and train talented young musicians.

The activities of the program go beyond performance to include lectures, panel discussions, and development of curriculum materials in collaboration with leading teaching and arts institutions and individuals.

The programming seeks to examine different expressions and interpretations of arts and the variety of impacts it can have on musicians themselves and the audiences they inspire. Music, unlike the visual arts, does not communicate directly between the composer and the audience. It necessitates a musician/artist, as an intermediary. Consequently, differing perspectives, brought by knowledge of the historical context of the composition, contemporary conditions, the personality of the composer and the artist, and their personal experience, influence, and interpretation, are important to gaining a richer understanding and appreciation of the music.

Examples of Academy Programming:

Conversations with leading Artists and Figures

Unlike most orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra does not have a permanent conductor. It works each season with the leading conductors in the world. This provides a unique opportunity to learn from these varied musicians who are the interpreters of classical music for contemporary audiences. In this series of programs, conductors share with the Academists the knowledge of the historical and social context of pieces being played; the relationships between composers, their music, the orchestras for which they composed and that they conducted; and consider the different impacts particular music has had on audiences over time – each from their individual perspectives.

The Orchestra’s long-standing relationships with world-renowned artists and soloists as well as political and business leaders and other community leaders also offers opportunities for collaboration and learning. For example, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter worked with the students on a moving interpretation of the music of contemporary composer of film scores, John Williams, who also spoke with the Academists his long career composing and conducting music for films. Other speakers have included the former President of Austria, Heinz Fischer, discussing the intersection of music, society and diplomacy. The Vienna Philharmonic archivist, Silvia Kargl, addresses with each class the extraordinary history of the Orchestra performing its roles over the range of social and political conditions of the past 180 years. Ferdinand von Strantz helps the Academists learn the importance of developing a personal and institutional ‘brand’.

Seminars

The Foundation identifies and collaborates with musicologists and others to present Seminars that inform the Academists on a wide variety of issues on which music and society interact and influence one another. For example:

In the Spring of 2023, a series of seminars were presented with an emphasis on the musician’s role as policy entrepreneurs – musicians who have sought to improve society with new ideas and innovations in the fields of arts and politics. With the exception of Fritz Kreisler, all those featured worked closely with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Soprano Lilli Lehman was instrumental in the establishment of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Mozart Festival prior to the establishment of Max Reinhardt’s Salzburg Festival and is rightly referred to as ‘the Cosima Wagner of Salzburg’.

Violinist Fritz Kreisler dedicated himself to helping heal the emotional wounds in societies in Germany after World War I and World War II and re-integrating them into the international community.

Leonard Bernstein was considered a “Bridgebuilder” between different genres of music both within the United States and between North America and Europe. He delved beyond social conflicts, worked to erase negative stereotypes and fought for peace in the Middle East.

Maestro Daniel Barenboim, founder of the West-Eastern Divan orchestra and the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin, discussed his commitment and methods of bringing people together through music and educating the next generation of musicians to be both excellent musicians and the importance of impacting the society around them - .

Ethics and Moral matters – DDr. Oliver Rathkolb discussed the concrete impact of these exceptional personalities on communicating positive values within their communities while acting as bridgebuilders between societies as well as within national communities.

In 2021, a full day of seminars engaged the Academists in examining the evolution of the role of music in society.

The Change of the Status of the Musician in Europe in the late Eighteenth - and Early Nineteenth Century in Particular in Vienna and the Establishment of Public Concert was presented by Dr. Nizam Kettaneh, Chairman, Opera Lafayette; and Board Member of the Vienna Philharmonic Society.

Dr. Kettaneh addressed the social and institutional changes in Europe in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars with an emphasis on the changing role of musicians in society, from employees of the nobility or the Church, to independent performing artists - illustrated by the careers of Joseph Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. During this same historic period, the social context of music performance was transformed as it moved from the Palace to larger public concert halls which brought people together, actively supported concert life and influenced the cohesion of society. This phenomenon was also observed with the establishment of the Salzburg Festival in the aftermath of the First World War and the demise of the Austrian Empire.

The History of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was shared by Dr. Clemens Hellsberg, Artistic Director, Aldermatt Swiss Alps Classics and former Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The history of the Vienna court orchestra in the early 19th century and the circumstances of the creation of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is a case study of the changing role of the musician in society, as well as the new climate that was fostered in the Metternich era of the mid 19^th century. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was the first major Orchestra, formed in 1842, and it represented a paradigm shift in how music was presented.

Music Business and Political Culture in Imperial Vienna 1848-1918 was discussed by Dr. Oliver Rathkolb, Professor at the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna.

Society transitioned through different political ideologies and dynamics. This program examined the effects of the 1848 Revolution and the neo absolutism era on the classical musical business and considered the origins of the cultural revolution of the Fin du Siècle 1900 and in the more than two decades leading up to modernity and through World War I.