Andreas Franke Academy - a Scholarship for Highly Gifted Children

As one of its latest initiatives, the University established the "Andreas Franke Academy", a scholarship to specifically promote children with unusual musical giftedness from an early age. The programme offers highly gifted children courses in their respective instrumental major, as well as in music theorie, aural training, chamber music and orchestra to prepare them for a regular bachelor program at the University. The courses are exclusively given by the University's professors. Thanks to the generous support from the scholarship's sponsor Andreas Franke, .the complete program is free of charge for the children admitted.

Eventim Pop Music Course

The Eventim Pop Music Course, launched as a model project, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2008. It thus is not only the oldest, but also one of the most fruitful talent factories in Germany.

The course has produced numerous graduates in the past years, who gained tremendous influence on Germany's music scene. That includes internationally successful bands such as Texas Lightning, Revolverheld, Wir sind Helden or Seeed and artists like Ute Lemper, Tim Fischer or Heinz Struck. Many other participants found their place in the music business, as studio or live artists, at music publishers, record companies or universities.

The Eventim Pop Music Course is held by some of most renowned pop music experts in Germany, including Jane Comerford, Prof. Anselm Kluge, Prof. Peter Weihe, Prof. Curt Cress and many others.

International Mendelssohn Summer School

Every summer, highly-skilled music students from around the globe come together in Hamburg for two weeks in order to prove their musical talent in numerous master classes and further refine their playing with professional guidance. The students are taught by a high-class team of internationally renowned professors from Europe and the United States of America, including Menahem Pressler (piano, Beaux Arts Trio), Donald Weilerstein (violin, Weilerstein Trio, founder formerly Cleveland Quartet), Arnold Steinhardt (violin, Guarneri String Quartet), Samuel Rhodes (viola, Juilliard String Quartet), Valentin Erben (cello, Alban Berg Quartet) and Kolja Blacher (violin soloist, Hamburg) - to just name a few.

University Orchestra and Ensemble 21

The University orchestra, which has a long tradition, has been conducted by Prof. René Gulikers since 2005, who is also the principal conductor of the Ensemble 21 for contemporary classical music. The Ensemble 21 is integrated into the numerous activities of the University's Studio 21, which focuses on creating a platform for contemporary classical music. Its expressed aim is to not only make an impact within the University, but also on Hamburg's contemporary art scene and at a supra-regional level.

University Jazz Choir

The University Jazz Choir celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2008. According to Prof. Dr. Christoph Schönherr, founder and conductor of the choir, "jazz choral singing combines to traditional ways of making music, which have never been linked for a long time." To him, "jazz takes up many elements of the classic choral tradition, on the one hand, whereas it forms both the harmony and the rhythm of the singing, on the other."

A particular highlight of being a member of the jazz choir have always been the choir's trips, amongst others, to the Netherlands, France, Spain, or to Switzerland, as well as the choir's performances at big festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, or its participation in the production Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" with the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra.

Research

MUGI - Music Communication and Gender Studies on the Internet (Musikvermittlung und Genderforschung im Internet)

This musicological project, currently under the direction of Prof. Dr. Beatrix Borchard, aims at collecting and connecting information and materials on European women musicians, composers and patrons in an internet database in order to create comprehensive personal multi-media profiles of them. These profiles will contain information way beyond the aspects usually examined by music historians, which are mostly exclusively related to the women's works, but also illustrate the context, in which they worked. Thus the profile of Clara Schumann, for example, might not only offer an audio sample of one of her compositions, but also show pictures, notes, or letters of her.

Institute of Cultural and Media Management

The central characteristic of the University's Institute of Cultural and Multi-Media Management is the correlation of theory and practice with respect to both the Institute's courses of study and its research projects. In three research departments, the Institute currently focuses on projects on (1) the constitution and the system of foundations, (2) non-profit-management in culture and the media, (3) the culture and creative business sector. Another focus lays on "the civil society". The Institute does both applied and basic research and attaches great importance to the applicability of its research results.

Hasse Insitute

The University's Hasse Institute closely cooperates with the Hasse Society Bergedorf and conducts research on the life and works of the composer Johann Adolf Hasse. Related fields of work of this project are the study of sources, the technique of editing, the 18th-practice of staging, and local music history. Thus philological and practical issues of this project intertwine according to the University's conception of musicology.

Institute for Cultural Innovation Research (IkI; Institut für kulturelle Innovationsforschung)

The Institute for Cultural Innovation Research (IkI) is an institute affiliated to the University. With a focus on contemporary ..., it conducts research on cultural economic relations analysing new trends, structures, and cultural and economic developments, so as to create its own models for cultural innovation. In 2007, the IkI, representing the City of Hamburg, successfully filed an application for funding of its project KLANG! (SOUND!) from the German Federal Cultural Foundation's initiative Netzwerk Neue Musik (Network of Contemporary Classical Music). By means of this funding, which corresponds to the project funding provided to the IkI by the University itself, the project KLANG! is another effort to promote contemporary classical music in Hamburg under the guidance of the University. The IkI will not only conduct this project until 2011, but also regularly evaluate its success. One of the latest publications by the IkI, which mirrors its research on contemporary classical music, is Reinhard Flender (editor) "Free Ensembles for Contemporary Classical Music in Germany", Schott Publishing House, Mainz, 2007.