50 Years Karlsruhe University of Music

There's something really big to celebrate: In early 2021, the Karlsruhe University of Music will mark its 50th anniversary as an institution of the state of Baden-Württemberg.  Although the roots of the Hochschule date back to 1812, it was not until 1971 that its status as a state institution was confirmed. Today, the Karlsruhe University of Music is one of the leading educational institutions of its kind in Germany and enjoys a high level of international recognition. In 2013, the campus around Schloss Gottesaue, one of Karlsruhe's landmarks, was finally opened. Previously, the university had had to spread out over various locations in the city for decades. In their anniversary year, today's university members also remember in particular those colleagues who have played a decisive role in their success story over the past decades: The list of former lecturers includes more than 600 names.

The anniversary season, the Academic Year 2020/2021, takes place under the conditions of the Corona pandemic and its profound effects. The most important task is and remains to ensure the high quality of teaching and the optimal preparation of about 620 students from nearly fifty countries for their professional careers as musicians, scientists, journalists, computer scientists, educators. It is to be hoped that the Hochschule will soon be able to prove itself once again as one of the important cultural organizers in the Karlsruhe region and beyond, because the Rector, Prof. Hartmut Höll, who will be leaving office in October 2021, would like to send a signal with a demanding program that the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe will be able to maintain its national and international standing in the future thanks to worldwide networking. The quality of teaching, the excellence of the faculty and the internationality of the students have always and continuously been of utmost importance.

In its anniversary year, the School of Music is presenting a number of new features. For example, the campus will be completed by the two freshly renovated Kavaliershäuser. One of them will henceforth house a treasure: the Horst Günter Library - 3000 volumes from four centuries on singing and singing pedagogy. The university owes a great debt of gratitude to baritone Thomas Hampson for providing this treasure. In the future, he will be the patron of the Horst Günter Library and will hold an honorary professorship at the university from the coming semester.

In addition, the university will be represented at the traditional Karlsruhe Schlosslichtspiele 2021 with its own video contribution in front of a large audience. A box set with three CDs "Karlsruher Schule" – recorded by lecturers, students, alumnae and alumni – with works by Eugen Werner Velte, to whom the university owes a lot as rector, especially in the founding years, with works by Wolfgang Rihm and by composers who studied at the university, will be released in March, as well as the second volume of the "Karlsruher Reden" 2014–2020. In the cityscape, motifs from university life can be seen on a multicolored streetcar. And if all goes well, the students will present themselves again in summer 2021 at the afternoon festival "Karlsruhe klingt – music to go" in the city center, but also in a series of "birthday concerts" at selected Karlsruhe companies and institutions.

Special thanks are due to Sparda-Bank Baden-Württemberg, its foundations and its chairman Martin Hettich for their generous support of the many anniversary activities. The Karlsruhe University of Music would also like to thank numerous private and public supporters for decades of partnerships for the benefit of the university and its students – an important prerequisite for the successful future of the university, whose particular strength also lies in the fact that it is possible to study, work and live at CampusOne - Schloss Gottesaue without social, national, ethnic or religious barriers.