Yvonne Wasserloos receives Salzburg Culture Fund Award
Yvonne Wasserloos, university professor of musicology, has been awarded the International Grand Prize for Science & Research (worth €12,000) by the Cultural Fund of the City of Salzburg for her outstanding achievements as a researcher, including her work on ‘Music and Power – Dimension and Context’ and her research on the social, political and cultural significance of music – especially in connection with democracy and the culture of remembrance. Congratulations!
This is the 61st time that the Culture Fund Awards have been presented, and is also the year that marks 80 years of peace in Salzburg. With these awards, the City of Salzburg honours individuals whose artistic and scholarly work has made a lasting contribution to the cultural life of the city. The award ceremony took place on 17 November 2025 in the Solitär building of the Mozarteum University and brought together award winners from various fields who have distinguished themselves through their visionary projects and contributions to society.
Yvonne Wasserloos, Professor of Musicology at the Mozarteum since 2022, has earned an outstanding reputation in the international research community thanks to her broad-ranging expertise in the field of music history from the 18th to the 21st century and her in-depth analyses of political and social contexts. After studying musicology, modern history, German language and literature, and Scandinavian studies at the University of Münster, she completed her doctorate and habilitation there; her habilitation thesis, Musik und Staat. Dimensionen der Interaktion im 20. Jahrhundert (Music and the State: Dimensions of Interaction in the 20th Century) was awarded the Düsseldorf Young Musicology Prize. Visiting professorships and guest lectures took her to Berlin, London, Copenhagen and Riga, among other places, before she took up a position at the Rostock University of Music and Drama, where she taught for many years.
Since her appointment, Wasserloos has helped shape the musicological profile of the Mozarteum, in particular through the establishment of the research focus ‘Music and Power – Dimensions and Contexts’ (AMUM). Under her leadership, the interdisciplinary network addresses key issues in political music history, including music culture under the Nazi regime, politics of memory in music, and recent developments in right-wing extremist movements in musical scenes. The interdisciplinary conference ‘In Honour of: Cultures of Remembrance and Commemoration’ (2025) illustrates her central focus: examining music as a powerful medium of collective memory cultures, and critically reflecting on their forms and functions. Following on from this, the international congress ‘BioSphere & TechnoSphere: Music and Sound beyond the Human’ (2025) addressed the profound changes that digitalisation and AI-generated music are bringing to our perception of history, the present and future cultural developments.
Yvonne Wasserloos is co-founder and co-editor of the series Schriften zur Politischen Musikgeschichte (Writings on Political Music History), which has become firmly established as a pioneering forum for the examination of power structures in relation to music.
By awarding her the 2025 Cultural Fund Prize, the city is not only recognising an outstanding academic work, but also Wasserloos' contribution to strengthening a music culture that is open, reflective and historically aware.