My three-year relationship with ALIISA

Wow! Fortunately, the keynote speaker I requested, a philosopher recommended by music school colleagues in Vienna, agreed after a truly amazing conversation at Café Frauenhuber, which I read three of his recent books to prepare for last weekend! He will perform on June 12, 2023 for the Dissimination Event E2 Vienna, simultaneously Multiplier Event and Transnational Meeting. I can check that item off the calendar. So many are still open.

Several other speaker personalities were in discussion, but then some thing always prevented the conclusion. The fee, the timing, the modalities....

Our guest does not want to give a lecture, but a talk. He has further wishes, for example that he would like to hold the round table with students. I was at least able to get a teacher as another guest. OK. A colleague thinks that with him we have found a super guest for our symposium. One worry less.

What else is on the calendar? As with each of our three previous ALIISA meetings on inclusive music and arts education, including the Learning, Training, Teaching Week (LTT), held at mdw between 2020 and 2023, not only a large representative hall needs to be booked. Colleagues from Audiovisual Teaching have to be engaged, possibly two sign language interpreters have to be requested, numerous students and lecturers have to be invited, the poster has to be made with our graphic designer, the event has to be advertised in the media, and finally it has to be followed up again. Entry permits for audiences with special needs have to be ordered. Not to mention the materials that had to be organized for the LTT week and transported to another room every day. In the end, everyone pitched in and it turned out to be a successful training for everyone involved, especially the students. With the help of these, they were able to offer the specified own inclusive art education teaching units at institutions.

For the dissemination we have teamed up with the Austrian Edition, which includes LB Helga Neira Zugasty, Dr. Maria Dinold, Hana Zanin and study assistant Mag. Denise Csida, decided to hold three preliminary symposiums at the institutions of interested colleagues. We will present our results on May 5th and 6th, 2023 at the Fürth Music School, which is open to inclusion, with director and Erasmus colleague Robert Wagner, on May 9th, 2023 in a master's seminar with my colleague Ass.Prof. dr Erik Esterbauer at Orff Institute at Mozarteum Salzburg and on May 12 in the Music and Inclusion course, which my colleague Mag. Petra Linecker at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz.

Lectures on the tasks and results of the ALIISA project are planned for these preliminary symposiums, with participating teachers and students presenting. It is about exchange and further development of inclusive music making at universities and at music and art schools.

After the colleagues at VUSA Siauliai (Prof. Dr. Diana Straksiene, Dr. Edita Musneckiene) published a study on the motivations of the participating students in 2022, in 2023 the colleagues at mdw (Ass.Prof. Dr. Beate Hennenberg, Mag. Denise Csida) the task of creating an accompanying study on the perspectives of the participating teachers. It was evident that ALIISA had improved the quality of the teaching content offered. The teachers made available to the project, all experienced teachers with high additional qualifications and special training, with their unconventional and unorthodox methods, created more capacities for innovations at European universities, in art and music education and in research. The restrictions on the exchange due to Covid, which initially caused difficulties, allowed a new model of teaching and learning via Moodle and OpenEdu.

Especially with regard to the Viennese modalities, the institutional cooperation between universities and art training institutions could be structurally and sustainably justified, for example through the participation of several dance associations trained dance assistants in the inclusive music ensembles of the mdw or through the participation of students of the inclusive art education of the institute for the artistic teaching post at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Sattler) in an instrumental pedagogical inclusive course (Ass.Prof. Dr. Beate Hennenberg, Mag. BEd Christoph Falschunger).

The personal and academic development of our students involved has increased their career opportunities, for example through employment or networking.

The research and further development of inclusion into society by means of inclusive music and art education remains an important requirement even after ALIISA. A meaningful exchange between countries in the areas of education and community of values while preserving the country-specific educational culture should continue to be maintained. Because time is changing. Our students are asked to use their art to look at current social perspectives and to redefine them in human terms. Addressing new target groups in the society that are perhaps still on the fringes or involving sections of the public that have not yet been noticed in the performance of art, as we did in the course of the 4th Inclusive Sound Festival, which took place in Konzerthaus Wien, are requirements that Artists of all disciplines are provided. At best, this can result in a community of artistic citizenship that powerfully opens up new spaces for art education in society.

Most of the items on my calendar are ticked off. We have planned music and art pedagogical workshops and internships, developed a Finnish, Lithuanian and Austrian art education model, evaluated everything in between, written a curriculum for inclusive artistic education, drafted contracts, planned and written articles and finally considered a dissemination model for educational practices of inclusive art education. I thank the entire ALIISA team for your friendship. I wish the students strength, a strong network, great colleagues, a decent music school or institution and joie de vivre!