Conducting and Church Music
The Master's programme in "conducting" can be studied with various emphases: Conducting in the direction of orchestra or wind ensemble conducting, choir conducting, or guitar ensemble conducting. Wind ensemble conducting is also offered as a secondary profile in the Bachelor's degree programme.
Organ is also an essential part of different programmes: Church Music A and B, artistic/artistic pedagogical Bachelor, Master, and Konzertexamen.
Conducting is Not Just Conducting
With the director of the university orchestra, Prof. Sebastian Tewinkel, and the director of the university choir, Prof. Michael Alber, two renowned professors lead the university ensembles at the Trossingen University of Music and supervise the Master's degree programmes and specialisations in secondary school teaching. In order to take account of the particular importance of wind music in the south-west of Germany, the Master's degree programme in Conducting is also offered with a focus on wind orchestra conducting.
The Trossingen State University of Music was the first music university of the state to establish the wind orchestra conducting programme as a secondary profile back in 2005. The aim is to offer students a further professional perspective in addition to the qualification to teach and make music, namely conducting wind orchestras. The demand for qualified wind orchestra conductors is increasing from year to year.
The new focus of the Master's degree programme in Conducting aims to further develop artistic and conducting skills, deepen conducting and leadership practice in wind orchestras and provide comprehensive pedagogical and didactical knowledge in this area. The subjects of literature and arranging are also important pillars of the programme. This qualification is completed with two demonstration lessons and a public examination concert with a professional wind orchestra.
To ensure that the new degree programme can guarantee regular practical work, the professors responsible at the University of Music have created an innovative and unique cooperation model with the Baden-Württemberg State Police Orchestra (Landespolizeiorchester Baden-Württemberg). Conducting lessons can thus take place regularly in front of a professional orchestra. The students are supervised by Prof. Stefan R. Halder, chief conductor of the Baden-Württemberg State Police Orchestra, and Prof. Sebastian Tewinkel.
Church Music Training
At the time of the foundation of the Trossingen University of Music, the Church Music programme was already one of the very important pillars in the development of the university's profile. Today, one can perhaps only guess at the importance of the revival of sacred music for the people in our country directly after the Second World War. A close connection to the regions was also intended. To this day, this idea lives on in the structure of the church music programme in Trossingen: all students are already active in church music in the surrounding area during their studies. The university choir is therefore also firmly integrated into the concert culture of the Euregio-Lake-Constance region, which is so rich in valuable church spaces. The specially developed tutor system offers students majoring in choral conducting a particularly broad field for their own development.
In the area of organ training, the university also follows this path by including the historical baroque organs of Upper Swabia in the annual "South German Organ Academy" and the regular use of historical organs or copies of styles, such as the two romantic instruments in Schramberg (Walcker (1844), Späth (1925)), the Schildknecht-Bergmann organ in Villingen (1826) and the Silbermann copy in Villingen. Lessons, projects and examinations take place here every semester.
The university itself is well equipped with seven organ instruments, in particular the large concert hall organ with 80 stops, an instrument orientated towards the central German baroque style with 28 stops or the copy of an Italian baroque organ after Attegnati with 8 stops.
As an important pillar of church music education in Trossingen, the degree programme also benefits from cooperation with the Institute for Performance Practice. Numerous courses are open to students, and they are often involved in the Institute's projects as active musicians. The counterpart to this is the "Donaueschingen Music Days", where students can be right at the pulse of contemporary music.
The offer of a rich and cultivated church music culture for all people in a community, whether within the liturgy or in the context of extra-liturgical music cultivation, has probably lost none of its fruitfulness for society to this day. This offering has always changed with society and will continue to do so - what is valuable will continue to exist, multiply and must be nurtured so that it can benefit future generations.
A rewarding and fulfilling task for all those for whom music is a vocation and who want to make music their profession.