IN.TUNE in a New Phase: Learning and Teaching Together in the European Universities Alliance

At the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw), IN.TUNE is moving from planning to practice — and mdw’s Institutional Alliance Manager offers a front-row view of what this new phase means for teachers, staff, students and partners. From 66 proposals, 16 joint teaching pilots will now roll out across 2025–27 in formats ranging from online courses to blended intensive programmes and longer joint modules, with mdw engaged in ten. Alongside fresh offerings — from socially engaged musicking to immersive sound and creative communication—two joint degree pathways are in development: a modular “Music Master” concept and a renewed, more flexible ECMAster. This concise insight from Veronika Leiner (mdw) shows how ideas are becoming concrete opportunities and how we’re building towards coordinated, sustainable provision across the alliance. 

The following article is republished with kind permission of mdw. The original article is available in the October-November issue of mdw-Magazin

For nearly two years, now, the mdw has been working together with seven European partner universities on the European Universities Alliance IN.TUNE – Innovative Universities in Music and Art in Europe. The objective has been to develop common offerings as well as strategies in the areas of Joint Education Provision & Mobility, Research & Innovation, Societal Engagement, and Alliance Governance and Cooperation.

For the participating universities’ altogether 10,000 students, the winter semester of 2025/26 now brings with it some concrete initial academic opportunities: late 2024 saw teaching faculty and students from all partner institutions submit a total of 66 joint projects aimed at trying out and testing new, innovative educational formats. Of these projects, 16 were selected and will be implemented between now and the end of 2027.

The mdw is an active participant in ten of the 16 projects, which offer students the opportunity to have new learning experiences together with teachers and colleagues from its partner universities in Bucharest, Belgrade, Barcelona, Paris, The Hague, Oslo, and Helsinki. These teaching projects range from brief, intensive exchange in “Socially Engaged Musicking” (Axel Petri-Preis) to “Theory of Harmony” after the example of works by 19th-century composers (Michael Pinkas) and “Immersive Sound in Live Performance” (Pauline Heister). The courses are offered in the most varied formats such as pure online courses, short, high-intensity, and largely in-person encounters in “blended intensive programmes” (BIPs), and longer-term “joint modules” that include both digital and physically present components.

Viktória Várkonyi, a university assistant at the Department of Music Education Research and Practice, will be offering the online course “Creative Communication Skills for a Sustainable Music Career” together with Rebecca Huber from the University of the Arts The Hague beginning in the summer semester of 2026. This course provides an overview of communication tools for musicians and starts from the question, “How can I express and communicate my artistic identity?” as Viktória Várkonyi elaborates: “Students will explore how to craft their artistic voice, engage audiences, and effectively communicate their ideas across professional contexts, be they concerts, community music projects or digital platforms.”

Karolina Sawicka, a doctoral student at the Department of Music and Movement Education/Rhythmics and Music Physiology, will be realising two projects on musicians’ health together with colleagues from Oslo, Bucharest, The Hague, and Helsinki; among those she’s set to offer a blended intensive programme during the 2026 summer semester: “Musicians’ health is an important but frequently overlooked area of training,” she’s convinced: “This project seeks to inform students about how they can preserve and promote their own physical, mental, and emotional well-being while practicing and making music. They will also learn how they can optimise preparing for performances and develop sustainable practices for the demanding lives they’ll be living as musicians.”

While these formats are being implemented as pilot projects that explore in a practical way just how learning and teaching together in a European context might look, what formats actually work for which thematic and artistic content, and how their development can be continued sustainably, two joint degree programmes are also to be developed by the end of 2027. The mdw is involved with both joint programmes: “The Music Master—a joint programme across the boundaries of performance, music theory and music pedagogy” was initiated by Suzanne Konings from the University of the Arts The Hague in order to explore whether international cooperation between master’s degree programmes among the IN.TUNE partners can be realised; this would hence represent a modular master’s degree programme of sorts.

In the second joint programme, Vice Rector Johannes Meissl will lead an effort to renew the existing programme ECMAster: based on cooperation between European universities of music and the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA), ECMAster is a joint master’s degree programme for existing chamber ensembles that has been offered since 2019. “Several highly successful ensembles have already completed the programme, which is unique in the realm of chamber music and has turned out to be quite popular indeed,” remarks Meissl. “At the same time, however, pitfalls have become evident particularly in structural terms—so we’re now, for example, looking for alternatives to the typical division into semesters, which is often too inflexible for musicians who are just getting established professionally. Together with the IN.TUNE partners, we’ll be rethinking ECMAster from now until the end of 2027 in order to achieve better integration between the participating institutions and provide an even more intensive learning experience for the students.”

Photo credit: © Cédric Messemanne