Christian Meyer (cultural manager)

Christian Meyer (born December 14, 1962 in Vienna ) is an Austrian cultural scientist, economist and manager. From 2015 to 2019 he was Vice Rector for External Relations at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna .

Life

The son of the conductor Franz Xaver Meyer and the opera singer Helga Meyer-Wagner received piano and music theory lessons from the age of seven at the Margareten Music School and later at the Vienna Conservatory. He did his doctorate in business administration and economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business with a dissertation on export promotion policy in Austria and studied art history at the University of Vienna . Postgraduate studies in business administration took him to Harvard University .

With school friends, he founded the rock performance band Appendix, which was oriented towards New Wave and became known in Vienna in the early 1980s. He also played with Harri Stojka , Stefanie Werger and Franz Hackl . As a keyboard player , he relied on digital synthesizers , which he financed through piano lessons; A little later he used his experience in event management for independent theater groups. In addition, he played classical chamber music , worked as a social worker in Paris and worked as a freelance cultural journalist.

Meyer is married to the musicologist Susana Zapke . The couple lives in Vienna with their children.

In 1989 he got his first job in export finance. From 1990 he headed parts of the sales department at the Bösendorfer piano factory . In 1993 he moved to the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft as marketing director and management assistant. During his time there were u. a. the establishment of the baroque music festival Resonanzen , the establishment of the avant-garde festivals Wien Modern and audio courses, and the switch to electronic ticket sales. In 1996/1997 the Theater in der Josefstadt and the Vienna Volkstheater also commissioned Meyer with the reorganization of marketing and the introduction of an electronic ticket sales system.

Arnold Schoenberg Center

At the beginning of 1997 the City of Vienna entrusted him with the establishment of the Arnold Schönberg Center Private Foundation and the relocation of the Schönberg estate from the University of Southern California , Los Angeles to Vienna. In March 1997, at the proposal of the Schoenberg family, the Foundation Board appointed him Foundation Director and entrusted him with the artistic, scientific and commercial management of the center. In March 1998, Mayor Michael Häupl opened the newly built premises on Vienna's Schwarzenbergplatz; Meyer organized a week-long opening festival u. a. with the Vienna Philharmonic and a special exhibition from the holdings of the Schönberg estate.

Following the order of the City of Vienna and the Schoenberg family, Meyer and his team designed the center from the beginning as an innovative scientific competence center for the Schönberg School and at the same time as an open, outward-facing place for musicians, artists and scientists to meet the local one and international public. Performances of Schönberg's musical work were just as important to him as the thematization of the painter, theoretician, teacher, Zionist and contemporary Schönberg. With his team, he curated and organized scientific symposia, workshops , academies and educational programs, permanent and special exhibitions as well as more than 700 concerts, which brought up to 50,000 visitors and more than 1,000 scientists and artists to the Schönberg Center each year. He was editor of the scientific series Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center and (co-) producer of TV / DVD documentaries and music CDs.

In 2011 the Schönberg estate became a UNESCO World Heritage Site .

Faust Foundation, Peter Stein

Meyer has been accompanying the German director Peter Stein on his major projects since 1998 ; initially as financial coordinator of Robert Jungbluth , from 2001 as president of the Faust Foundation, Frankfurt for Stein's 21-hour complete performance of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust at the Expo 2000 in Hanover and in Berlin and until the end of 2001 at the Wiener Kabelwerk. As part of the Wallenstein Betriebs-gGmbH, which was set up together with Peter Stein, they produced the Schiller's Wallenstein trilogy in the Berliner Kindl Halle from 2005 to 2007 in cooperation with the Berliner Ensemble , and Stein's Italian dramatization of Dostojevskij's I demoni in Italy and for festivals in all of Europe and the Mostly Mozart Festival, New York; from 2009 several editions of Peter Stein's School of Hearing and Seeing for budding theater people and in 2013 Samuel Beckett's The Last Volume with Klaus Maria Brandauer . In 2015/16 he curated the exhibition Peter Stein - 46 Videos at the Vienna Künstlerhaus .

Leopold Museum

From 2000 to 2003 Meyer was appointed to the board of the Leopold Museum Private Foundation by the Austrian art collector Rudolf Leopold . At short notice, he was also given the special function of the executive board. As a result, he coordinated the completion and opening of the new building in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier on the part of the foundation, the strategic positioning of the Leopold Museum, the development of a corporate identity , he established professional financial planning and lean administration and organized the employment of around 80 employees . In addition, he set up a friends association and acquired the first sponsors and media partners. Under his leadership, the team exceeded the budget of 300,000 visitors in the first year.

University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw)

In 2015, the University Council elected Meyer on the proposal of Rector Ulrike Sych as Vice Rector for External Relations at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) for a term of four years. In this function he was the Rector's deputy and involved in all strategic, educational, artistic and administrative work processes of the Rectorate. Within his department, he and his team oversaw around 1,300 events annually, designed mdw festivals and major events, including the 200th anniversary celebrations in 2017, expanded international relationships through cooperation with high-ranking partner institutions and accompanied the mdw as head of corporate communications at the Path to the world's leading university in its field.

Work in committees and juries

In addition to his work as a director, Meyer was and is a member of various juries and committees, such as the board of trustees of the Wiener Festwochen (1998 to 2001); member of the supervisory board of L. Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH (2002 to 2007); in the Vienna Theater Jury, which recommended a funding budget of 19 million euros to 36 out of 117 submissions as part of the Vienna theater reform (2004 to 2007); in the jury of the International Hilde Zadek Singing Competition in cooperation with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (2006 to 2015); 2011 to 2013 board member, since 2013 board member of the Wiener Symphoniker , since 2012 board member of the Friends of the Wiener Künstlerhaus and since 2015 member of the Comité scientifique of the Fondation Royaumont, Asnières sur Oise.

From 2015 to 2019 he was President of the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna (Board member since 2007, Vice President in 2014).

Since 2013 Meyer has been advising the composer Arvo Pärt as trustee of the Arvo Pärt Center in Laulasmaa , Estonia.

Dramaturgical and curatorial work (selection)

• Exhibition Peter Stein - 46 videos at Künstlerhaus Vienna, 2015/2016, curation and publication of the exhibition catalog
• Dramaturgical support for the scenic production of the Neue Oper Wien Schönberg in anticipation - The book of the hanging gardens op.15 / anticipation op.17, 2015
• Kandinsky exhibition : Tudo Comeca Num Ponto in Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Bela Horizonte, 2014/15. Catalog contribution and co-curation with Evgenia Petrova, Joseph Kiblitsky and Rodolfo Athayde
• Andy Warhol exhibition in Tampere, Finland. Curation of cover art and a film and music retrospective in collaboration with Claudia Zevi and the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, 2014
• Exhibition art is: new art - reflections on Schönberg in contemporary art . Curated together with Edek Bartz at the Arnold Schönberg Center with works by Hong-Kai Wang, Silke Otto-Knapp , Marina Rosenfeld , Florian Pumhösl , Rodney Graham , Mathias Poledna , Stephen Prina , Simon Starling , Pawel Ksiazek , Marcel Odenbach and Arnold Schönberg, editing of the exhibition catalog, 2013
• Exhibition Schönberg's Beethoven for the Beethoven Festival at the Beethoven House in Bonn, 2012, curation and publication of the exhibition catalog
• Exhibition Kandinsky, Schönberg, Kupka at the Museum Kampa , Prague, 2011. Curation, conception of the exhibition catalog with contribution
• 2007/2008 conception of the cooperation house for independent theater groups on behalf of the City of Vienna (opened in 2009 as Kabelwerk Wien-Meidling)
• Exhibition Schönberg, Strindberg, Munch - Nordic Expressionism in Schönberg's Vienna around 1900 . Curation together with Susana Zapke and publication of the exhibition catalog with contribution to the Arnold Schönberg Center, 2008
• Founding and dramaturgical direction of a music festival in San Francisco, USA together with the conductor Kent Nagano and the pianist Mari Kodama , 2003 to 2007
• Exhibition Schoenberg, Kandinsky and the Blue Rider at the Jewish Museum New York, curated together with Esther da Costa Meyer and Fred Wasserman, 2001
• Reorganization of the Gmundner Festwochen , Salzkammergut; Curation of key topics on classical and modern chamber music and Thomas Bernhard , 2000 to 2005
• Exhibition Schiele e Klimt - I maestri dell'arte moderna austriaca in Aosta, Italy. Curated together with Rudolf Leopold and Romana Schuler, 2000

Publications (selection)

author

• Mahler, Schönberg, de La Grange: A Virtual Dialogue , in: Bempéchat, Paul-André (ed.): Naturlauf. Scholarly Journeys Toward Gustav Mahler. Essays in Honor of Henry-Louis de la Grange for his 90th Birthday, 2016

Editing

• 2009 Facsimile edition by Arnold Schönberg, Six Little Piano Pieces op.19
• 2005 Catalog raisonné on the artistic work of Arnold Schönberg (together with Therese Muxeneder)
• 1998 to 2015 Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center

Others

• Production of a concert for the Salzburg Festival by Mitsuko Uchida , Barbara Sukowa , Clemens Hagen and others with Schönberg's Pierrot lunaire and a documentary on Pierrot lunaire on DVD for Belair / Arthaus, Berlin, 2011

honors and awards

• Awarded the professional title "Professor" by Federal Minister Josef Ostermayer, 2015
• Appointment as Officer of the Order of Civil Merit of Spain by King Felipe of Spain , 2015
• State Prize of the Minister of Culture - Austria's Most Beautiful Books, 2005 for: Meyer / Muxeneder, Catalog raisonné Arnold Schönberg, Das bildnerische Werk
• State Prize for PR 2002 (nomination), Leopold Museum - opening campaign (Promota Agency)
• State Prize for PR 1998 (nomination), Arnold Schönberg Center (Bohatsch Grafic Design Agency)
• State Prize for PR 1992, together with Randolf Fochler, L. Bösendorfer Piano Factory - The Hollein Grand Piano

Web links

• Literature by and about Christian Meyer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Christian Meyer in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christian Meyer export promotion policy in Austria
2. ^ SRA - Archive of Austrian Popular Music
3. ↑ Susana Zapke - Urban Music and City Design at the Time of the Early Habsburgs
4. ↑ Now He's the Pride of Vienna, Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1998
5. ↑ https://www.k-haus.at/de/ausstellung/295/peter-stein--46-videos.html
6. ↑ QS Ranking 2019 Universities for Performing Arts. July 16, 2015, accessed April 18, 2019 . 
7. ^ La Médiathèque Musicale Mahler et la Fondation Royaumont s'associent. Retrieved on August 10, 2017 (fr-fr). 
8. ↑ https://www.arvopart.ee/en/arvo-part-centre/about-the-centre/team/non-fiduciary-trustees/
9. ↑ Invitation to a press conference on the occasion of the exhibition. Künstlerhaus, November 19, 2015, accessed January 30, 2016 . 
10. ↑ Peter Stein - 46 videos. The legendary productions of the great director. Künstlerhaus, accessed on January 30, 2016 . 
11. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
12. ↑ Caroline Elsen: On familiar terms. In: FAZ.net . November 21, 2012, accessed October 13, 2018 . 
13. ↑ Awarding of the professional title "Professor" to the director of the Arnold Schönberg Center . APA notification dated May 28, 2015, accessed October 31, 2015.