International Arnold Schönberg Masterclasses

Ildikó Raimondi is a celebrated singer on the opera stage and a well-known recitalist and interpreter of Lieder. From 1991 to 2020 she has been a member of the Wiener Staatsoper where she has sung over 50 opera roles. Guest performances have taken the Vienna-based artist to opera houses and renowned festivals around the world. Her artistic career has been well documented through numerous CD and DVD recordings as well as radio and TV broadcasts.

Ildikó Raimondi has a particular passion for 20th-century music. Works by Arnold Schönberg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Egon Wellesz, Ernst Krenek as well as contemporary composers such as Friedrich Cerha and Thomas Daniel Schlee make up the extensive repertoire of the lyric soprano. Ildikó Raimondi is titled Austrian Kammersängerin and since 2015, she has been a Professor of Solo Singing at the University Mozarteum, Salzburg.

Charles Spencer studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Awarded numerous prizes, Charles Spencer is among the internationally best-known and sought-after Lied pianists.

Collaborations and performances with renowned singers such as Christa Ludwig, Bernarda Fink, Ildikó Raimondi, Elīna Garanča, Thomas Quasthoff and many others have taken him to the most important centers of the international concert scene. From 1999 until his retirement in 2020, Charles Spencer held a professorship in Lied-interpretation for singers and pianists at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Every year he leads a master class in Husum together with Ulf Bästlein. Furthermore, he gives master classes in France, Portugal, Japan, Korea and China and is a higly acclaimed juror at numerous international competitions. In 1999 he was appointed Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London. Many of his CD-recordings (i. a. with Thomas Quasthoff) have received prestigious record awards.

Hardy Rittner studied in Salzburg and Berlin and is a laureate of numerous competitions. His international concert engagements have led him from Europe to the USA, Canada, South Korea, China and Taiwan. Hardy Rittner is a professor of piano and artistic research at the Musikhochschule Freiburg. In addition to his performances on the modern concert grand piano, he also specializes in the historic performance practice of the 19th century. His doctoral thesis brought new insights into the interpretation of Chopin's works and was published by Bärenreiter. For the Detmold label MDG, he recorded the entire piano works of Arnold Schönberg as well as the piano solo works by Johannes Brahms on period instruments. His recordings have been honored (among others) with two ECHO Klassik awards.

Jean-Bernard Matter studied bassoon and piano accompaniment at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), and orchestral conducting at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. As a répétiteur, he worked with Sergej Bychkov and Harry Kupfer and assisted Berislav Klobučar and Georges Prêtre. Engagements as répétiteur and Kapellmeister led him to the opera houses in Graz and Halle, and later to the Paris Opera and the Vienna State Opera. As a guest conductor, he collaborated with various orchestras in France, Italy, Monaco and Eastern Europe as well as with numerous contemporary music ensembles, including Klangforum Wien and the ensemble XXI. jahrhundert.

As Kapellmeister of the Opéra de Nice, Jean-Bernard Matter conducted numerous world and national premieres. At the Wiener Festwochen and Bregenzer Festspiele, he was assistant conductor for world premieres of operas by Wolfgang Mitterer and Georg Friedrich Haas. In 2007, he was Pierre Boulez’s personal assistant at the Wiener Festwochen.

Jean-Bernard Matter has taught Contemporary Music and Composition Practice at the mdw since 2008. From 2016 until his retirement, he was Professor of New Music and Head of the Department of Contemporary Music there.

The Serbian pianist Milica Zakić completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s studies at the University of Belgrade as the top graduate of the piano department. She subsequently earned a second Master’s degree in Graz with a focus on contemporary music, working closely with Klangforum Wien. Since then, she has performed regularly with Klangforum Wien, is a member of Ensemble Wiener Collage, and collaborates with ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Schallfeld, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra (MKO). As a soloist, she appeared at the Vienna State Opera in 2025 in Morton Feldman’s Ixion. In 2023, she performed Beat Furrer’s Nuun as a soloist with Klangforum Wien and participated as pianist in the recording of his works (Ins Offene). As a soloist, chamber, and ensemble musician, she has performed at venues such as the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, MUMUTH Graz, and the Theater an der Wien. Since 2024, she has maintained an artistic collaboration with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, within which she recorded works by the violinist-composer in 2025.