‘If the strength of the association and other circumstances permit, the association will also endeavour to extend the teaching at the Mozarteum to the female sex, but in any case separately.’
Although this formulation in the statutes of the Salzburg Cathedral Music Society on the occasion of the founding of its Mozarteum training centre in 1841 still leaves some uncertainties in terms of equal rights, it nevertheless represents a first turning point with regard to equal musical education in Salzburg. Unsurprisingly, the first female students, whose education was ‘permitted by the strength of the organisation and other circumstances’, were in the singing department. They took part in a mass by Alois Taux in Salzburg Cathedral in November 1847. A note about this performance in the Viennese magazine clarifies for musicologist Eva Neumayr that ‘from autumn 1847 at the latest, women were performing a function that had been reserved for men for centuries’.
As far as is known, the first female teachers in the subjects of singing and piano mostly came from well-off families and/or had wealthy husbands. In accordance with the gender concepts of the 19th century, according to which middle-class women - especially married women - were not supposed to carry out income-generating activities, their teaching activities at the Mozarteum were long regarded as an honorary position. Accordingly, these pioneering women not only had to fight against a more or less visible gender pay gap, but also to be remunerated at all. Even after the Mozarteum was recognised as a conservatory in 1914, female piano teachers such as Berta Kulstrunk and Else Indra, who together with singer Martha Schlager were the first women to be awarded the title of ‘Professor’ in 1934, continued to fight for fair pay.
Although the institutional changes in 1914 did not yet lead to equal pay between the sexes, they did open up all teaching subjects to women. From the 1914/15 academic year, for example, there is evidence of a female participant in the ‘composition course’ for the first time. And even if the student registers of the following decades are not completely preserved, the first women can gradually be found in other fields of study that are still male-dominated today: Kapellmeister course (1922/23), percussion (1931), double bass (1932). However, there are often decades between the first enrolment and the first final examination: it was not until 1962/63 that a woman graduated as a ‘Kapellmeister’ with Renata Braunwieser, followed by Christina Obber in conducting in 1977/78. Brigitte Hampel was the first female graduate in double bass in 1972, Patrizia Caprioli-Berger in percussion in 1987 and Aurelia Sickert in composition in 1992. And although over 60% of Mozarteum University graduates are now female, it was not until the 2024/25 academic year that the university produced its first female graduate in trombone performance and is still waiting for a female graduate in tuba performance.
In 1988, Michaela Schwarzbauer was the second woman to complete a doctorate at the Mozarteum University. The only two doctorates to date ‘sub auspiciis praesidentis’ (i.e. with top marks and in the presence of the Federal President) were awarded to Anna Maria Kalcher in 2007 and Elisabeth Eder in 2023 at the Mozarteum University.
These developments are exemplary of a gender dynamic that can also be observed at other music education institutions - with noticeable effects on the appointment of professors and the composition of many European orchestras, among other things. The visibility of female role models - whether on stage, in classrooms or in exhibitions - is not just desirable, but essential: as orientation, as encouragement, as an impulse for critical reflection on what was - and what could be. Because where women shape not only content but also structures, spaces for change are created.
Women in management positions
In 1914, the celebrated soprano Bianca Bianchi founded the opera school at the Mozarteum without a quota, but with vision. In 1916, it was another internationally renowned singer, Lilli Lehmann, who laid the foundations for the later International Summer Academy Mozarteum, which is still successful today, with her singing courses. Women as initiators were obviously not a problem as long as no official titles had to be supplied. For Erika Frieser, who in 1979 became the first and to date only female pianist to head the Department of Keyboard Instruments, was appointed the first female ‘Full University Professor of Piano Chamber Music, Vocal and Instrumental Accompaniment’ in 1982. In terms of the first female heads of department, however, colleagues from the singing and opera departments were decades ahead: Martha Schlager-Haustein took over as head of the respective departments in 1952 and Viorica Krauss-Ursuleac in 1962. Hilde Weissner was also the first woman to take the helm of the theatre in 1962.
When Annemarie Lassacher-Sandmeier, a lawyer, became the first female Rectorate Director, i.e. Head of Administration, in 1986, the minutes of the entire college (the Senate counterpart at the time) once again testify less to a lack of competence in gendering than to a text module automatism of male function attributions that had been practised over centuries: ‘The Rector welcomes those present, in particular [...] the new Rectorate Director, Dr Annemarie Lassacher-Sandmeier, [...]’.
The amendment to the Universities Act provided the legal basis for Manuela Widmer, a woman from the ‘Mittelbaukurie’, to prevail against a male candidate from the ‘Professorenkurie’ as the first female chairperson of the University College of the Mozarteum University in 1999. ‘I realised that I could and had to prove the convictions that I had always held as a woman in a still male-dominated society! I had always complained that women were not (self-)aware enough of their abilities and were far too modest when it came to leadership positions,’ she later described her motivation.
Gertraud Steinkogler-Wurzinger, also from the ‘Mittelbau’, was the first woman to take on the role of Vice-Rector in 2000 and was elected as the first female Senate Chair in 2013. At the same time, Viktoria Kickinger became the first woman to chair the University Council. From 2016, Brigitte Hütter and Sarah Wedl-Wilson appeared as the first interim rectors, until finally in 2018, 177 years after the Mozarteum was founded, Elisabeth Gutjahr took over as the first regularly elected female rector.
This shows that change requires perseverance, courage and reliable structures, and it often begins where individuals are willing to take on responsibility - not despite, but precisely because of the hurdles that preceded them. Making visible who has taken which paths - under which conditions, with which struggles and successes - means more than historical justice: it creates an awareness of the prerequisites for participation and casts a critical light on today. Because equality is not a state, but a process - one that requires remembrance as well as clear perspectives. And one thing is certain: the next chapters have not yet been written.
(First published in the Uni-Nachrichten / Salzburger Nachrichten on 31 May 2025)
