Guest Professorship on Music
The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Professorship at the Freie Universität Berlin
On the occasion of its 50th birthday, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation announced an guest professorship. In the application process, Freie Universität Berlin prevailed over ten competitors with its promising concept. Miriam Akkermann will be appointed to the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Professorship at the FU Berlin in the summer semester of 2024. Anna Schürmer has held this position since the summer semester of 2026. The focus will be on anchoring New Music in musicological discourse and the closer interlinking of theory and practice.
The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation offered the professorship on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. A total of eleven universities from German-speaking countries applied. The Freie Universität Berlin has now been awarded the professorship. The professorship in musicology, which is endowed for a period of five years, will be established at the Institute of Theatre Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities in the summer semester of 2024. The aim of the endowed professorship is to anchor New Music more firmly in academic discourse, to promote the examination of New Music at universities and music colleges and to promote research-based teaching. To this end, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is providing a total of 1.25 million euros.
In the summer semester of 2026, Anna Schürmer, a scholar of music and media culture, will assume the endowed professorship. Her research brings together methods from traditional musicology with those of related disciplines such as sound studies, media studies, and gender and queer studies. Her areas of focus include questions of queerness in music and the role of artificial intelligence in the process of musical creation. Schürmer represents an innovative approach, giving the professorship a strong emphasis on current trends in contemporary music.
Over the next three years, Anna Schürmer will develop teaching and research projects at Freie Universität Berlin (FU) on key discourses in contemporary music. She will also initiate projects at the Department of Musicology in collaboration with other disciplines and actors in the field of contemporary music. “For me, the future of musicology lies in its ability to present itself as an interdisciplinary and internationally connected discipline,” says Anna Schürmer. “At the Institute for Theatre Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, and specifically in the master’s program Music, Sound, Performance, this perspective can be anchored in a particularly fitting way.”
Camilla Bork, head of the Department of Musicology at Freie Universität Berlin, adds: “With the help of the endowed professorship, we have in recent years succeeded in developing a distinct, contemporary research profile and in establishing the highly sought-after Master’s program Music, Sound, Performance, both nationally and internationally. This is by no means a given at a time of declining student numbers. We look forward to working with Anna Schürmer, whose networks and perspectives will provide new impulses. The foundation’s funding has made a significant contribution to turning the Department of Musicology at FU into a vibrant place of exchange on questions of music and sound practice, bringing together scholars and artists and engaging with society at large.”
With the endowed professorship, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation would also like to have an impact on the academic landscape and facilitate a closer connection between current artistic practice and academic work.
Anna Schürmer’s inaugural lecture, titled ZUKUNFT(((s)))MUSIK, or: New Musicologies, will take place on June 16, 2026, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the lecture hall of the Institute for Theatre Studies (Grunewaldstraße 35, 12165 Berlin). Admission is free!