Guest Professorship on Music
The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Professorship at the Freie Universität Berlin
On the occasion of its 50th birthday, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation announced an guest professorship. In the application process, Freie Universität Berlin prevailed over ten competitors with its promising concept. Miriam Akkermann will be appointed to the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Professorship at the FU Berlin in the summer semester of 2024. The focus will be on anchoring New Music in musicological discourse and the closer interlinking of theory and practice.
The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation offered the professorship on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. A total of eleven universities from German-speaking countries applied. The Freie Universität Berlin has now been awarded the professorship. The professorship in musicology, which is endowed for a period of five years, will be established at the Institute of Theatre Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities in the summer semester of 2024. The aim of the endowed professorship is to anchor New Music more firmly in academic discourse, to promote the examination of New Music at universities and music colleges and to promote research-based teaching. To this end, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is providing a total of 1.25 million euros.
Miriam Akkermann is appointed to the endowed professorship. She is a proven specialist in the field of New Music and Technology and researches the history and analysis of New Music and sound art with a special focus on the integration of electronic and digital elements (computer music, mixed music, digital musical instruments, music technology) in music as well as the formation of musical performance practices under technological conditions.
Miriam Akkermann will work closely with the ensembles of Berlin's New Music scene over the next five years, building bridges between musicology and musical practice. She will develop teaching and research projects on key works of New Music as well as curate a collaborative and interactive platform on New Music performance traditions and artist residencies at the Department of Musicology. "The aim is to develop an interface between research and teaching on New Music and current practitioners from the musical field," says Miriam Akkermann, "This is one of my central interests. I am therefore very much looking forward to now being able to develop and implement exciting projects in this interdisciplinary environment at the musicology department of Freie Universität Berlin as part of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Professorship."
"The Professorship allows us to distinguish ourselves even more strongly in the field of sound art and musical performance beyond existing research focuses and to offer students a highly attractive programme on current debates and practices in the field of new music."". Prof. Dr. Camilla Bork, Musicologist, FU Berlin
With the endowed professorship, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation would also like to have an impact on the academic landscape and facilitate a closer connection between current artistic practice and academic work.
Miriam Akkermann's inaugural lecture will take place on November 28, 2023 as part of the lecture series Music, Sound, Performance: Perspectives of Musicological Research in the 21st Century from 4-6pm in the lecture theatre of the Institute of Theatre Studies (Grunewaldstraße 35 12165 Berlin). Free admission!
Miriam Akkermann's inaugural lecture will take place on November 28, 2023 as part of the
lecture series Music, Sound, Performance: Perspectives of Musicological Research in the 21st
Century from 4-6pm in the lecture theatre of the Institute of Theatre Studies (Grunewaldstraße
35 12165 Berlin). Free admission!