Curated by Initiative Minderheiten (IM)

 

Music by minorities is never apolitical. As soon as minorities express themselves publicly through music, that expression becomes a political act: minority languages are made audible and identities become visible. At the same time, minorities are often reduced to their musical culture, thereby being deprived of their “political nature”.

Yet the music of majority societies is also frequently charged with political significance. Anthems, for example, reflect historical narratives and power relations and shape images of nations. Consider the final verse of the Carinthian state anthem (“wo man mit Blut die Grenze schrieb,” English: “where the border was written in blood”) or the Styrian state anthem, which also refers to Lower Styria (“von der Drau bis zur Save,” English: “from the Drau to the Sava”), a region located in present-day Slovenia. The Styrian state government’s recent proposal to include this reference in the constitution triggered diplomatic tensions between Slovenia and Austria.

This panel explores the possibilities of using music as a political statement. Which spaces are being used? What historical continuities and ruptures exist? How can institutions such as the MMRC support the activist work of individuals, and what role can they play in this context? Above all, how can music – through, for example, the adaptation or transformation of traditional songs – become meaningful and relevant to a younger generation of minority members?

 

Speakers:

Mira Gabriel is a filmmaker, translator, and contributor to the Slovenian weekly newspaper NOVICE. During her school years, she was actively involved in political theater projects. She is an activist in the Klub slovenskih študentk*študentov na Dunaju / Club of Slovenian Students in Vienna. She organizes demonstrations, commemorative events, and anti-fascist camps, among other things.

Santino Stojka is a roma-rights activist, trainer and musician. He is the current the president of HÖR (Hochschüler*innenschaft österreichischer Rom*nja / The Austrian Romani Student Union) which focuses on remembrance culture, community support and non-formal education through excursions and workshops. He gives workshops with a focus on anti-racism, antiziganism and roma music. In his musical projects he satirizes life in Vienna and various political topics, and performs them on stages and protests throughout Vienna.

Konstantin Milena Vlasich studies language arts at the University of Applied Arts and is a journalist and author. Since his youth, he has been involved in politics and multilingual artistic activities. From 2020 to 2025, he was editor-in-chief of the print and online magazine NOVI GLAS. In 2023, he was awarded the first major art scholarship from the province of Burgenland. In fall 2024, his first collection of multilingual texts, “Erac wird beim Schnapsen verspielt” (Erac is lost in a game of cards), was published by Edition Lex Liszt 12. He is co-curator of the Literaturpassage in Vienna's Museumsquartier and is responsible for the “Literakuga” series at the cultural center of the same name in Großwarasdorf/Veliki Borištof.

 

Chair:

Isabel Frey is an ethnomusicologist a Yiddish singer and a cultural and political activist. She currently works as a Senior Artist and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology and an affiliated researcher at the Music and Minorities Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She is an internationally sought-after performer and teacher of Yiddish song, has released three albums of Yiddish music and is the co-curator of the KlezMORE Festival Vienna. She is also the founder of the Jewish-Arab peace initiative Standing Together Vienna, where she is active both musically and as an activist for a just peace in the Middle East.