Rector Constanze Wimmer takes up her post with a new team at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg

Statement by Constanze Wimmer:

“I am delighted that my team and I will be able to start work on 1 April 2026! As an arts university, we are committed to providing our students with the best possible environment for their individual journeys into the arts and cultural sector. This is best achieved when the university itself is a vibrant hub for art, research and education, with an impact felt in the city, the region and far beyond Austria’s borders. We aim to be excellent hosts, sharing our artistic projects and insights with as many people as possible, thereby creating a seamless connection between study, career and society.”

The new rectorate team comprises four vice-rectors: Organist Hannfried Lucke has been confirmed in his role as Vice-Rector for the Arts. Manager Karin Skarek takes on the role of Vice-Rector for Resources, whilst music educator Helmut Schaumberger assumes the role of Vice-Rector for Teaching.

The Vice-Rectorate for Research has been newly established. In doing so, the university underscores the growing importance of artistic and scholarly research activities. This role will be taken on by cultural studies scholar and research manager Eugen Banauch.

Rector Prof. Dr Constanze Wimmer

Constanze Wimmer, Professor of Music Education, served as Vice-Rector for Teaching, International Affairs, Sustainability, Gender and Diversity at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz from 2020 to March 2026. She studied musicology, journalism and cultural management, obtained a PhD in music education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, founded Austria’s first university course in music communication at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, and worked for many years in the concert sector and in cultural education in the fields of music education, audience development and audience engagement. To this day, she is active as a project developer for numerous international orchestras, concert halls and festivals. From 2023 to 2024, she was involved in the research project ‘Networked Innovation in Classical Music: Collaborative Ecologies in Creative Cities’ (AHRC Network). In addition, she has extensive experience as a member of juries, advisory boards and executive committees, and has numerous publications to her name as both editor and author.

Vice-Rector for Resources Mag.a Karin Skarek, MBA

Following an international career with well-known corporations such as Procter & Gamble, American Express and Leica Microsystems, where she held management and executive positions, the mother of one son and two stepsons spent a voluntary social service year in Tanzania. There, she supported an NGO working in the fields of medicine, education and social work on a pro bono basis, contributing her financial expertise. This experience marked her transition from the private sector to the NPO sector. From 2017 until taking up her position at the Mozarteum University, Karin Skarek was the Chief Financial Officer of the Vienna Technical Museum with the Austrian Media Library, where she was responsible for all operational matters and finances. In addition to the operational management of the museum, the recipient of the Dr Maria Schaumayer Foundation award is particularly committed to gender equality and the advancement of women. She also continuously drove forward measures to make the museum’s operations more sustainable and resource-efficient, for which the institution was awarded the Austrian Ecolabel as the first federal museum to do so. Karin Skarek is a passionate amateur musician and singer and, since moving to Salzburg, has been a member of the Bachchor Salzburg.

Vice-Rector for Teaching, Univ.-Prof. Mag. Helmut Schaumberger, PhD

Helmut Schaumberger was Professor of Music Education at the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music from October 2021 to March 2026. Shortly after his appointment at the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music, Helmut Schaumberger took on key management and committee roles, including in the Research, Teaching and Practice Committee, the Council for Good Academic Practice, the Department of Music Teacher Training and the Doctoral Programme. He also held positions on the Senate and the Studies Commission. He provided significant impetus for the expansion of music teacher training in Carinthia and, in addition to research on singing with children and young people and on music teacher training, led the accompanying research for the ‘Musikschule Plus’ pilot project. Until 2026, he served as an associate partner in the EU project Teacher Education Academy for Music and maintained a wide range of national and international collaborations. As the EAS National Coordinator for Austria, he was responsible for the European Days of Music in Schools. He held executive positions in music education associations such as the MFÖ and the AGMÖ.

Visiting teaching and research stays took Helmut Schaumberger to several European countries and the USA. He has published over 45 specialist articles and several anthologies on music education, and has delivered more than 65 lectures and keynote speeches at national and international conferences. ORCID-Link

In addition to his academic work, Helmut Schaumberger has had a lasting influence on the musical life of his home region as a choir director and artistic director of several festivals. Furthermore, he has for many years been a sought-after speaker in teacher and choir director training programmes. Helmut Schaumberger studied teacher training in Vienna and graduated in 1997 with an award-winning dissertation on Hubert von Goisern. This was followed by 18 years of teaching as an instrumental, music and German teacher, including at the Stiftsgymnasium Seitenstetten. In 2012, he moved to the Mozarteum University in Salzburg as a university assistant, where he obtained his doctorate in 2018 with a thesis on the professionalisation of children’s and youth choir directors. He shaped music education training within the music teacher training programme, served as deputy head of the Department of Music Education and operational director of the School of Music and Arts Education, and was involved in teacher training within the ‘Neu im Cluster Mitte’ initiative. In 2020, he was awarded first prize in the Research Competition.

Vice-Rector for Research Mag. Dr. Eugen Banauch, MA

Eugen Banauch is a scholar of literature and cultural studies (having studied in Vienna and Sussex) who has conducted research and taught in North America, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Vienna. His study on Jewish literary exile in North America (Fluid Exile) garnered international attention. He has also published academic and popular works on Bob Dylan and his reception in Europe. His book Austrobob was published by Falter-Verlag, and the anthology Refractions of Bob Dylan was cited in the Nobel Prize Committee’s statement in 2016. After years of intensive teaching and research on North American literature and culture, his focus shifted increasingly towards higher education development, research funding, innovative forms of academic collaboration and digital transformation in higher education. At the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), he headed the Programme for the Development and Promotion of the Arts (PEEK) from 2011 to 2015.

In 2019, Banauch took over the Research Management department at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. During this time, the university’s research funding was professionalised and the proportion of third-party funding in the research sector was increased. Projects in numerous funding formats were successfully secured, including PEEK and FWF individual projects, a Connecting Minds project, and an ERDF/FFG infrastructure project for the UMAK’s X-Reality Lab.

He is responsible for innovative programmes designed to promote research and mobility, such as the interdisciplinary travel grants ‘With Dylan on the Road’ (‘Uni auf der Walz’) and the Mozarteum Research Competition, which has established itself as a key driver of research quality, success in securing external funding and a forward-looking research culture.

Vice-Rector for the Arts, Prof. Hannfried Lucke

Hannfried Lucke has been Professor of Organ at the Mozarteum University since 2000. He regularly holds masterclasses in Europe, the USA and Japan, serves as a juror at international organ competitions and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg. Since 2018, he has been Vice-Rector for the Arts at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg and has played a decisive role in shaping the institution’s international orientation.

Hannfried Lucke hails from Freiburg im Breisgau and received his musical training at the State University of Music in Freiburg, the Mozarteum University in Salzburg and the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva. He was a scholarship holder of the German Academic Exchange Service and was awarded the ‘Premier Prix’ at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva and the Commendation Prize from the Austrian Minister for Science and Research.

Concerts and radio recordings have taken him to most European countries, the USA, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. He has performed on major organs and at major festivals (including the Vienna Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Royal Festival Hall in London, St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the Kyoto Concert Hall). His numerous CD recordings for labels such as Thorofon, Mitra, Carus and Coviello have received multiple international awards.

In 1997, Lucke was appointed Professor of Organ at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz; in 2000, he accepted a chair at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. From 2016 to 2017, he also taught as a visiting professor at the University of Music in Freiburg.

The Vice-Rectorate was elected by the University Council of the Mozarteum University in Salzburg on the recommendation of Constanze Wimmer and following a statement by the Senate. For the term of office until 2028, it comprises five members – chaired by Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Rosa Reitsamer. The University Council also includes Matthias Naske (Deputy Chair), Mag. Silvia Grünberger, Univ.-Prof. (ret.) Dr. Elisabeth Klaus MBA and Thomas Rietschel M.A.