The new cafeteria. Foto: Diesner

Düsseldorf’s Robert Schumann School of Music and Media enjoys an excellent international reputation. Located in the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the School of Music and Media has a student body of some 900 coming from over 40 countries. Forty-seven full-time and part-time faculty and 150 associate professors provide individualized instruction of the highest caliber. The four programs of study (four programs of study) offered by the School of Music and Media -Music, Music Promotion, Audio and Video (Engineering), as well as Music and Media - cover the entire range of music professions.

Music majors graduating from the School of Music and Media go on to sing or perform at major opera houses and with the world’s leading symphony orchestras or pursue a career in church music or pursue a career as sound engineers, film music composers or concert pianists.

Music, the largest of the programs of study, focuses on performance: Anyone who studies piano or violin, guitar or clarinet, composition or voice in Düsseldorf learns to perform together with other musicians in orchestras and ensembles. That is why degree programs include many performance opportunities: The University Orchestra regularly performs at Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle symphony hall and, in close collaboration with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, opera voice majors show off their talent in an annual staged opera production.

The Musikvermittlung (Music Promotion) degree program includes majors in Music Education, Conducting, Ear Training, and Church Music. Social and pedagogical competency play an important role in all majors. For instance, a church music major not only has to play the organ but also be able to lead a choir and to make music with children and young people. Work with laypeople is also the goal of the music education degree program, where education majors are prepared for a career as teachers in music schools.

Despite the considerable amount of work on performance, theory is not neglected. The School of Music and Media’s musicology faculty carry on research in historical and systematic musicology. They organize scientific symposia and publish a series of scholarly papers. A special role is played by the Institute of Music and Media, which concentrates on the practical training of students for careers in media and the music industry. Majors such as Media Composition, Music and Media, Media Dramaturgy and Management provide excellent training for work in these specialized fields. The program of studies Audio and Video, offered in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, combines studies in engineering with formal conservatory training. Düsseldorf is the only university to offer this major in Germany.

Cooperation with the German Armed Forces music training corps, which began in 1976, is also unique. Every professional musician in Germany’s armed forces has a degree from the Robert Schumann School of Music. The Bundeswehr prepares soldiers for the entrance exam and later employs the trained musicians.

The School of Music and Media also works intensively with the next generation of musicians. It collaborates with other Düsseldorf schools and music schools, and in 2008 founded it own training center for talented youth. The Schumann junior program caters to talented students between the ages of ten and seventeen.

It is no longer possible to imagine the Düsseldorf cultural scene without the School of Music and Media. Each week recitals and performances are given in the Partika-Saal concert auditorium. Lectures hosted by the Institute of Music and Media and the Department of Musicology round out the program.