Musical Education

In 1988 I received my first organ lessons in the Diocesan Conservatory for Church Music of the Archdiocese of Vienna. In the following year I started the course for B-church music which I ended with honors in 1994. And on that same institution I also took the course on New Sacred Song.

From 1995 to 2005 I studied the organ at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts with Professor Peter Planyavsky. In June 2000 I passed the first diploma exam (here is my diploma program) before I temporarily terminated my studies (for the length of one year) for completing my duties as a civil servant. Between September 2003 and June 2004 I studied (within the Erasmus framework) at the School of Music and Music Education, Gothenburg University. (Organ with Sverker Jullander and improvisation with Johannes Landgren.) I ended my studies in March 2005 with the second diploma exam. (Here you can check out my diploma program for the final diploma).

In 1998 I additionally started studies in Catholic Church Music - the main subjects in this field being organ, improvisation, liturgical organ playing and choir and ensemble direction - and took the First Diploma examination in May/June of 2003.
The examination in choir and ensemble direction was divided into a so-called "internal" and a "public" part, with the internal part (my programme for this examination is available here) being more of an examination with a focus in rehearsal methods and skills, while the "public" part includes the planning and musical leading through some kind of a liturgical service.
My diploma examination in organ consisted of three parts, all of which have to be taken on a single day, which are the following: Liturgical organ playing (examination requirements here), improvisation (examination requirements here) and organ literature recital. (My diploma programme you can find here.)
For my Masters Studies I chose the two main areas organ and improvisation on one hand and church music composition on the other, where I had to pass one internal and one public examination each to successfully finalize my studies. The task of the internal examination in composition had to be solved within three hours of examination writing time, for the public diploma examination four of my works were receiving their premiere in the course of a liturgical celebration. My examination program for the organ diploma contained works of varied styles, and the public examination contained also an improvisation being performed in the course of a concert performance, of which the required task was handed out four hours ahead of the examination.

And though in both fields the main focus is on being taught in the artistic subjects, I still wrote a few scientific papers so far as well.

Currently I am studying (with the help of a study grant by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research) the organ with Jacques van Oortmerssen in Amsterdam, where I focus on music of the Renaissance and the Baroque Era. (For my scientific project in the course of this study period, please, see my page on scholarly work.)

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