University of Music and Performing Arts Graz

The University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, known as Kunstuniversität Graz or KUG, is a public university in Graz, the capital of Styria. Its roots go back to the music school of the Akademischer Musikverein, founded in 1816, which makes it the oldest university of music in Austria.

The institution became a state academy in 1963, was renamed a Hochschule under the 1970 Universities of the Arts Organisation Act, gained the authority to award degrees in 1983 and took its current name in 1998. Its main building is Palais Meran, a late classical palace built between 1841 and 1843 that was once the residence of Archduke Johann. Teaching and performance are spread across several other buildings in Graz, including the MUMUTH concert hall opened in 2009, the Neubau known as the Piano, the Theater im Palais and the renovated Reiterkaserne, plus a campus in Oberschützen in Burgenland.

The university is organised into institutes covering composition and conducting, piano, strings, wind and percussion, vocal studies, opera, drama, stage design, jazz, early music, church music and organ, ethnomusicology, aesthetics of music and electronic music and acoustics, among others. It runs a Doctoral School for Scholarly Doctoral Studies and an Artistic Doctoral School. With its Dr.artium programme it was the first university in Austria to offer an artistic doctorate. A Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition has been held every three years since 1989.

The national register lists 108 programmes of all kinds and languages at KUG, and none of them as English-taught. The register gives no subject breakdown beyond that. The Wikipedia text lists fields of study including instrumental studies, jazz, opera, drama, stage design, conducting, composition, music education, music therapy, early music and doctoral programmes in artistic research and scholarly study. Some fields run in cooperation with other Graz institutions, such as electrical engineering and audio engineering with Graz University of Technology and musicology with the University of Graz.

For an international student, the practical points are these. You apply directly to KUG, which sets its own application period and entrance procedure. Students from outside the EU and EEA need a Residence Permit for Students. At public universities, EU and EEA students and Swiss students pay no tuition within the standard duration of study plus two semesters, while most other students pay a per-semester fee. Every student also pays the student union fee.

The register lists 108 programmes of all kinds and languages at this institution. None of them is listed as taught in English, so this directory shows no programme list for it. If you read German, the institution's own website is the place to start.