Hamburg University of Music and Theater

There was a time when the Hamburg University of Music and Drama was considered an “enfant terrible” among the German music academies, when the HfMT kept the scene in suspense with all its innovations. That was when the then President Hermann Rauhe broke the traditional boundaries of education with new foundations such as jazz, pop, cultural management and music therapy, wrote music education on the flags of the university and burned her profile as a gifted entertainer through the media in the consciousness of Hamburg society.

In tireless travel, Elmar Lampson has made new contacts in Europe, Asia and America since he took office in 2004, because he is convinced that the exchange and friendly competition with different countries and cultures is the lifeblood of the university. Openness and curiosity towards the most diverse people in the diversity of their origins, their convictions, culture, religion and gender, as well as the willingness to learn from diversity, the foreign, the other, is the attitude that drives him.

Creative reinvention and courageous advancement

The music and theater culture for which the HfMT works has its foundations in the culture of Europe. But our interest goes far beyond that. For a university in which people from almost fifty nations work together, the conflicts and emergencies of the present world do not take place in distant countries, but affect many of our students, teachers and friends directly. It is our original task to feel that we are part of the world with our artistic work – a world with its tensions and needs, as well as with all of its huge opportunities and the inspiring diversity of its cultures.

Under the guiding principle of artistic excellence in social responsibility, the university is in permanent processes of creative reinvention and courageous further development, in processes that repeatedly push everyone involved to their limits, in processes through which ours University challenges the world with creative impetus and inventiveness.