Profile

The Anton Bruckner Private University offers artistic, artistic-pedagogical and artistic-scholarly studies in the disciplines of music, drama and dance.

The range of courses includes Bachelor's and Master's degrees in a wide variety of artistic subjects: from classical to jazz, from early music to new music, from elemental music education to music mediation, from drama to dance. Since the winter semester of 2019/20, there has also been the opportunity to take a scholarly or artistic-scholarly doctoral programme.

The overarching goal of all training programmes is to encourage independent artistic thought and action, thus enabling graduates to work successfully in a variety of professional contexts.

Being an artist in a variety of contexts

The special profile of the Bruckner University is based on a different understanding of the challenges of artistic, artistic-pedagogical and artistic-scholarly professions. In order to position oneself in the cultural field in our society, a wide range of qualifications is required.

The basis is a solid artistic training that encompasses the study of different musical and artistic languages, past and present, and how to communicate them. In addition to deepening one's own discipline, however, engagement with other artistic disciplines is also required. In view of a cultural life that is increasingly organized across disciplines, artists need an understanding of the special features of related artistic disciplines as well as knowledge of their current developments.

Just as the boundaries between disciplines are opening up and in some cases disappearing, the boundaries between artistic, pedagogical and research activities are also increasingly disappearing: graduates of the Anton Bruckner University are artists who work on stages as well as in pedagogical or scholarly contexts and thus shape cultural life.

These diverse requirements can only be met by graduates who have broad horizons and who critically reflect not only on their own actions, but also on the significance of art in our society as a whole. In addition to the artistic-technical qualification, the promotion of critical reflection is therefore also an essential goal of the education at the Anton Bruckner University.

In order to qualify graduates for the diverse demands of the professional field, the ABPU pays attention to permeability between different areas: between art and pedagogy, between artistic practice, between artistic pedagogical practice and research, between study and profession, and between artistic disciplines.

Permeability between art and pedagogy

The Anton Bruckner University offers integrative studies in which artistic and artistic-pedagogical studies are closely linked, so that not only is there a high degree of permeability, but two qualified degrees can be acquired in parallel. In this way, the university is responding to a changing professional field that increasingly demands professional qualifications from individuals in both artistic and pedagogical respects.

Permeability between artistic practice and research

Completing an artistic degree at a university means excelling in the main artistic subject, but it also means reflecting on and contextualizing one's own artistic practice. Therefore, one of the central educational goals is to promote a basic attitude of research.

The Anton Bruckner University places a high value on collaboration between the faculties of art, education and research. In joint coaching and projects, artistic, pedagogical and scholarly perspectives and methods are brought into dialogue with each other. The doctoral school, which combines a scholarly and an artistic-scholarly doctoral programme under one roof, also serves to consciously exchange perspectives.

Permeability between studies and career

In numerous projects and collaborations, students get to know artistic and pedagogical practice at a very early stage.

The Orchestra Academy in collaboration with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Upper Austrian Opera Studio and the Drama Studio in collaboration with the Landestheater Linz, as well as collaborations with cultural institutions abroad, serve to orient students towards the professional field. In this way, students are given the opportunity to get to know professional artistic practice in its many aspects on the basis of contracts with an orchestra or a stage, while also acquiring a BA or MA degree from the university.

Cooperation with the Austrian State Music School Association, with schools, kindergartens and social educational institutions gives students insights into the many challenges of the pedagogical profession.

Interdisciplinary permeability

The ABPU offers degree programmes with a specific focus on music, drama and dance, the aim of which is to deepen students' knowledge of a single artistic discipline. However, it also considers it important to offer courses in which students can gain comprehensive knowledge beyond their chosen field.

The transdisciplinary approach not only characterizes artistic projects and coaching sessions that are deliberately designed for students from different degree programmes, but it is also the guiding principle for research. The transdisciplinary approach to research is reflected in the transdisciplinary doctoral studies and in the cross-institutional research council.

Open university in an open society

The ABPU embraces the idea of an open society in which the diversity of cultures and languages represents a potential that can be used positively for the further development of society. In the history of the arts, the conscious engagement with diverse artistic languages and with changing social contexts has repeatedly led to new ideas and developments.

The Bruckner University sees itself as an open university that consciously promotes communication between inside and outside: on the one hand, by addressing different target groups with its artistic productions, and on the other hand, by being open to social and artistic impulses from outside. It sees the development of new art forms and the testing of new concert and performance formats, including at new locations, as a contribution to promoting an open society.