Gustav Mahler was far more than a composer, his music more than the art of arranging sound. Far more than that, his works constitute an engagement with the human condition. His masterpieces reveal a human being grappling with life’s key questions: What is the meaning of life? How can we comprehend death? Who are we? How can we deal with identity and the need to belong? How can we be in harmony with the environment and our planet? What can music, art, and culture accomplish?
This is the inspiration for the Mahler Forum for Music and Society, a locally based and globally connected cultural platform. In collaboration with the Mahler Foundation, as well as international and national musicians, artists, scientists, and authors, the Mahler Forum provides an open, interdisciplinary space of thought to examine the central issues of our time from the perspectives of music, art, and science.
If the first Mahler Forum, entitled — I, Nature, dealt with the frequently contradictory relationship between culture and nature, between humans and the environment, the second Forum, called A Room of One’s Own, focused on the artist’s retreat as a cultural technique several thousands of years old.
At the third Mahler Forum, we seek to generate a democratic space of thought under the title of The Power of Wonder—Astonishment as a Driving Force for Community Building. All participants are invited to jointly try out, discuss, and make visible tools of wonder for contemporary and future concepts of society from the perspectives of music, the visual arts, literature, the humanities, and the natural sciences.
President: Felizitas Thun-Hohenstein
Vice-President: Morten Solvik
Secretary: Andreas Krištof
Deputy Secretary: Katharina Boesch
Auditor: Claudia Onitsch
Auditor Deputy: Michael Koschier
Thomas Hampson, Ulrike Sych