A new teaching organ for the HfMDK

A pro­ject at the HfMDK that has been in in­ten­si­ve pre­pa­ra­ti­on for several ye­ars is be­co­m­ing a rea­li­ty: the re­now­ned Aus­tri­an or­gan buil­ding com­pa­ny Rie­ger is buil­ding a new, con­tem­pora­ry and high-qua­li­ty tea­ching or­gan for the HfMDK. This in­vest­ment in stu­dy equip­ment will si­gni­fi­cant­ly im­pro­ve the qua­li­ty of or­gan and church mu­sic edu­ca­ti­on at the uni­ver­si­ty. The main spon­sors of the new tea­ching or­gan are the Aven­tis Foun­da­ti­on and the Crespo Foun­da­ti­on. The Feith-Foun­da­ti­on is also kind­ly sup­por­ting the con­struc­tion of the new or­gan. The or­gan should be rea­dy by Oc­to­ber 25, 2024.

An ex­cel­lent boost for church mu­sic trai­ning

The new or­gan will pri­ma­ri­ly be used for les­sons and in­de­pen­dent stu­dy. Even be­fo­re mo­ving into the plan­ned new buil­ding, the uni­ver­si­ty is thus streng­t­he­ning the con­di­ti­ons for ex­cel­lent ar­tis­tic trai­ning in the field of church mu­sic and or­gan. The de­part­ment of church mu­sic stu­dies has been se­cu­red in the long term with the sub­se­quent ap­point­ment of three new pro­fes­sor­ships sin­ce 2015.

In many pla­ces in our so­cie­ty, church mu­sic ta­kes on the func­tion of a ba­sic mu­si­cal of­fe­ring, es­pe­ci­al­ly out­si­de the ci­ties with their dif­fe­ren­tia­ted cul­tu­ral events. It en­ab­les ae­s­the­tic ex­pe­ri­en­ces with mu­sic, opens up a wide ran­ge of re­gio­nal op­por­tu­nities for par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in in­stru­men­tal and cho­ral en­sem­bles and pro­vi­des a com­mu­ni­ty-buil­ding frame­work for exis­ten­ti­al life mo­ments such as birth, mar­ria­ge and de­ath. Many church mu­si­ci­ans to­day per­form at an out­stan­ding in­stru­men­tal and con­duc­ting le­vel.

The or­gan as an in­stru­men­tal sub­ject, which is cen­tral to church mu­sic edu­ca­ti­on, ties in with Chris­ti­an and Je­wish mu­si­cal tra­di­ti­ons, es­pe­ci­al­ly in Frank­furt, and also in­cor­po­ra­tes the mu­si­cal-his­to­ri­cal de­ve­lop­ment of the or­gan out­si­de of re­li­gious con­texts: in the con­cert hall, la­ter in the ci­ne­ma of the si­lent film era or as an elec­tro­nic in­stru­ment in po­pu­lar mu­sic.

Sustainab­le ex­pan­si­on for the or­gan city of Frank­furt

Frank­furt is a city with many or­gans, but few meet the re­qui­re­ments of a uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­ti­on. We are now be­gin­ning to clo­se this gap in edu­ca­ti­on with the new or­gan for the HfMDK. The purcha­se of the new tea­ching or­gan is sustainab­le, as the or­gan is ex­pec­ted to have a mi­ni­mum ser­vice life of 50 ye­ars. The fact that the new or­gan can also be re­lo­ca­ted to the plan­ned new HfMDK buil­ding was part of the re­qui­re­ments for its con­struc­tion.

Fol­lo­wing an in­vi­ta­ti­on to ten­der in ac­cordance with pu­blic pro­cu­re­ment law, the re­view of va­rious of­fers from in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly re­now­ned or­gan buil­ding com­pa­nies and in­ten­si­ve nego­tia­ti­ons with all ap­p­li­cants, the Rie­ger com­pa­ny was awar­ded the con­tract to build the new tea­ching or­gan - one of the lea­ding or­gan buil­ding com­pa­nies of our time. Its most im­portant new con­struc­tion pro­jec­ts in­clu­de the or­gans of St. Mar­tin Kas­sel, St. Ste­phen's Ca­the­dral in Vi­en­na, Mainz Ca­the­dral, the Mu­sic Cen­ter Hel­sin­ki and the Vi­en­na Mu­sik­ver­ein. Rie­ger gua­ran­tees a very high le­vel of pro­duc­tion on site - prac­ti­cal­ly all (count­less) in­di­vi­du­al parts of the or­gan are de­ve­lo­ped and ma­nu­fac­tu­red wi­t­hin the com­pa­ny its­elf.

Time­ta­ble for the con­struc­tion of the or­gan

• Ja­nu­a­ry/Fe­bru­a­ry 2024: de­tail­ed plan­ning of the or­gan
• then start of work in the work­shop in Schwarz­ach/Vor­arl­berg
• Mid-July 2024: com­ple­ti­on of the work, (par­ti­al) as­sem­bly of the or­gan in the work­shop
• 19. Au­gust 2024: start of as­sem­bly at the HfMDK
• 23. Sep­tem­ber 2024: Start of voi­cing
• 25. Oc­to­ber 2024: Com­ple­ti­on