Gerold Gruber

Gerold W. Gruber (born September 6, 1958) is an Austrian musicologist, professor at the Institute for Analysis, Theory, and History of Music at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and head of the research center M.A.E.D (Music Analysis and Exile Documentation Research Center).

Gruber served as a lecturer of Music Theory at the Institute of European Studies (IES abroad) since 1991. He was vice head of the Ph.D Curricula Commission at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, which he coordinated to create the Ph.D program 2012.

Gruber is a founder of the non-profit organization Exilarte.at, which is focused on composer research and music publishing in the time of the Holocaust. The exil.arte operates as a center of reception, preservation, revival of suppressed Austrian composers during the years of the 'Third Reich' through publishing music, books, and musical performance. Under his supervision exil.arte published a new book series, the recent publication in this series is "The Impact of Nazism on Twentieth-Century Music" (ed. Erik Levi). Following by a successful accomplishment, Gruber received the Golden Stars Award by the EU commission in 2009 and the Bank Austria Art Prize in 2010, as well as the Innovation Prize of IG Kultur in Vienna 2014.

Gruber's teaching and administrative experience contributed to setting up many projects with his colleagues from other universities such as Bratislava, Rostock, London and other cities. From 2010 to 2013, he led the EU project “Accentus musicalis“, which is an Early Music and Historical Music Performance research program. The project was collaborated with M.A.E.D, the Music Academy of Bratislava (VSMU), and the Slovakian ensemble Musica Aeterna. Based on his 25 years of efforts on scientific and artistic work with Slovakia and Austria (especially in Bratislava and Vienna), he was granted the Honor of Doctorate from the VSMU in 2014. In 2011 an international symposium was held in Vienna to honor the composer Gustav Mahler at the Konzerthaus Wien, "After Mahler`s Death", with scientific contribution as well as artistic evaluations by Michael Tilson Thomas and Thomas Hampson (published 2013, ed. Gerold Gruber, Morten Solvik, Jan Vičar). Currently, Gruber initiated the Critical Edition of the writings by Schoenberg at the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, which will be published in next few years.

Gerold Gruber earned Ph.D degree in Musicology at the University of Vienna and studied Pantomime with Samy Molcho. He was an active research scholar member of the Anton Bruckner Institute Linz (ABIL), the Commission for Musical Research (Austrian Academy of Science), the Herbert-von-Karajan-Foundation (on Music Perception), and others. In 2014 he received a Honorary degree from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.

In cooperation with the University for Music and Performing Arts, Gruber organizes different concerts, workshops, and events on the topic of exiled composers. In 2014, he led a tour through France, USA, and Mexico, where composers - suppressed and expelled under the Nazis - were performed in order to promote the works of these composers; Tansman, Zeisl, Arlen, Schönthal, Rubin, and others. The venues included the Maison Heinrich Heine, the Carnegie Hall, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Teatro Peón Contreras.