Profiles of alumni of Göttingen musicology

J.: I work for one of Europe's biggest event organiser for concerts, shows and festivals. I am responsible for business communication and the marketing of festivals. Put in one sentence: It is my job to create the greatest possible attention and enthusiasm for live culture through marketing, public relations and the coordination of media partnerships.

• What from your studies in musicology helps you on your job?

J.: From my studies, I have retained critical thinking, the precise reflection of complex subjects and a general understanding of the relativity of knowledge and opinions. Musicological facts and knowledge are rather less important in my job - but my studies have definitively helped me make informed decisions and to better empathise with other people and cultures.

• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?

J.: The personal atmosphere and the collection of musical instruments at the historic Accouchierhaus in Göttingen were very special to me. Furthermore, Göttingen has an exciting cultural and scholarly life and a wonderful landscape surrounding it, which in my opinion is a unique mixture in Germany. In my view, Göttingen does not have to shy at the comparison to my new home city Hamburg!

• How was your career path from university to your current position?

J.: After completing my studies, I went on a journalistic traineeship at the Göttinger Tageblatt, which I can warmly recommend to everybody interested in working in media. Afterwards I was press secretary of a non-profit foundation in public health, before I found my way back to music at FKP Scorpio.

• What from your studies in musicology helps you on your job?
A.: I learned the tools of academic work at the Department of Musicology. Especially the skills of writing a seminar paper help me to work critically and reflectively with scholarly literature. This is essential for my journalistic work in the newsroom.
• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?
A.: My student job at the Library of the Department of Musicology. I had lots of fun on this job. Also the involvement with the musicology student representatives was special to me.
• How was your career path from university to your current position?
A.: After completing my B.A. in musicology and German philology in Göttingen, I continued my studies at the Music Academy in Hannover (Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover) with the M.A. Medien und Musik. During this time I started working at the Jazz Initiative and also worked for several months at the broadcaster NDR Kultur. After finishing my M.A., I directly started the job at the RND.

• What from your studies in musicology helps you on your job?
T.: Nearly everything! Especially helpful for my work are the skills aquired in my studies on historical music theory, paleography, (transeuropean) music history and current theories in cultural studies.
• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?
T.: I found very attracitve the lived, open approach to music through cultural studies. In this perspective, preconditions of any cultural utterance or action are questioned, the view on the Self and the Other in music is reflected, and functions of the social and political within musical acts and spaces are analysed.
• How was your career path from university to your current position?
T.: I studied musicology and history in Göttingen since 2006, first in the B.A. course, followed by the M.A. course (since 2009). I finished both courses of study in regular durations and continued with my doctorate in musicology in Göttingen with Prof. Dr. Waczkat (since 2011). I defended my dissertation in 2015.

• What from your studies in musicology helps you on your job?
B.: The way of thinking within the humanities and the general knowledge in cultural studies that I aquired in my studies help me. Because I work in a research-supporting job, I profit most from the experiences and skills aquired in my doctorate.
• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?
B.: The personal atmosphere.
• How was your career path from university to your current position?
B.: I studied musicology in the B.A. and the M.A. at the Department of Musicology in Göttingen. Subsequently I continued with my doctorate at the same department. During my doctoral studies, I became interested in research management. I took part at the Göttingen University mentoring programme Wege ins Wissenschaftsmanagement and began my current position right after finishing my PhD.

• What from your studies in musicology helps you on your job?
E.: The basic studies in musicology help me pursuing my own research. I am practically continuing on from the quite research-oriented M.A. Cultural Musicology, which I studied together with Cultural Anthropology in Göttingen.
• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?
E.: The openness. Especially the student research projects I was an active part of during my studies. These were rooted in seminars, some also transcended the classroom and continued for several months with exciting excursions, fieldwork and lecture series. I have especially positive memoris of the classes of Dr. Klaus-Peter Brenner about Mbira music, as well as the conferences organised and hosted by the department staff. The academic exchange at these events motivated me in my studies an for my PhD-project. I witnessed a lively musicological community at the Accouchierhaus with great colleagues, resulting in lasting friendships. This was also due to the house and the library: both venues were always meeting places to delve into studies, but also to present one's own ideas and put them to discussion.
• How was your career path from university to your current position?
E.: Building on my M.A. studies, I drafted my PhD proposal. I was able to directly continue in Cambridge where I am working since 2019.

• What from your studies in musicology helps you on your job?
B.: The ability to look at music and musical practice from different angles. The impulse to never take for granted an assumedly normal musical opinion, but to always question it, enriches the artistic work with sounds a lot.
• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?
B.: The rather small, personal department allows students to quickly get involved in working at seminars or behind the scenes. This gives me the retrospective feeling to have undergone not just "a", but "my" musicology study in Göttingen. The main focus of the studies on posing the right questions has influenced my thinking until today.
• How was your career path from university to your current position?
B.: After the B.A. in musicology in Göttingen, I studied piano and music pedagogy for one year at the HMT Leipzig. Afterwards I applied for conducting and was accepted into the class.

• What made studying musicology in Göttingen special to you?
S.: The special thing about my studies was the fabulous freedom (in hindsight), that the rather unstructured Magister study course offered. However, the lecturers also used this freedom, wich resulted in a rather limited range of study topics. For example, after the departure of Rudolph Stephan to Berlin, no music of the 20th century was covered in the curriculum. Topics covered were music of the middle ages or Byzantine church music.
• How was your career path from university to your current position?
S.: Already during my studies I worked for the GT as independent writer supplying reviews, I started this 1971, 50 years ago. After my studies (which I did not complete with a degree), I was research assistant at the Department of Musicology. Afterwards, following a short term unemployment of three months, I got a traineeship placement at the GT and after nine month was employed as permanent editor - not just for two years, as is common today, but permanently.