Media composition and computer music at the Anton Bruckner Private University

Music has always been an interactive and participatory technique for people communicating in society. Even in the many millennia before digital production and distribution, music was already a very powerful form of 'social media'. The invention of musical notation, the printing of sheet music, sound recording, processing and transmission has provided numerous new and different ways of participating in music-making groups (e.g. using headphones and streaming services). However, it is helpful to keep in mind that it is not only music that defines itself as 'medial' or 'computer music' that has fundamental connections to the issues discussed in the context of electronic and medial arts. Computer music might have more in common with choral singing, which has always been a collaborative creation of virtual worlds, than may seem apparent at first glance.

Consequently, the Media Composition/Computer Music group at our university does not see itself primarily as a place for training future composing service providers in the media industries or as an institution in purely digital sound worlds, independent of other forms of music.

The bachelor program’s major (Studienzweig) media composition/computer music aims to provide its students with artistic approaches, technical skills and theoretical reflection on relevant topics, thus motivating them to explore our increasingly technologized world, in which the roles and functions of music are constantly changing, through independent composition. To support this, students at the IKD have access to superbly equipped facilities for the production and presentation of electronic music.

The artistic master program in Composition does not distinguish between the three branches of study found in the bachelor's program. Thanks to its openness, the curriculum allows individual students on the Master course to set their own priorities, be it in the field of jazz, instrumental composition or media composition/computer music.

The master program in Postdigital Lutherie, which is offered in cooperation with the Anton Bruckner Private University at the University of Art and Design Linz, offers a wide range of courses in the fields of digital music, interaction, and sound. Students in the composition program can take part in most of these courses and have them credited as electives.