About us

The Music Academy Stift Lambach aims to create a space for art and culture in the broadest sense. It is therefore important to us to capture the atmosphere of the abbey and take the participants on a musical journey into the past centuries, to the very rooms that Mozart, Haydn and Marie Antoinette once visited and also to the manuscripts that countless composers bequeathed to Lambach Abbey. As part of the course, there will be the opportunity to take part in a free guided tour through the historic walls of this Benedictine abbey.

The initiative for the Music Academy Stift Lambach originated with two music students, Felix Metzger and Stephan Deinhammer, who founded the association "Musikakademie Stift Lambach" in 2024. 

What is there to see?

• Oldest sheet music from 1650: The music collection comprises 4000 mostly handwritten pieces of music, the oldest of which date back to 1650. It represents the musical tastes of cultural centres such as Venice, Paris and Vienna.
• Mozart and Haydn in Lambach: Both the Mozart family and Michael Haydn cultivated close relationships with Lambach Abbey. The most outstanding result of this is Mozart's ‘Lambach Symphony’ (KV45a), which he dedicated to Abbot Amandus Schickmayr and which is still kept in the archives today.
• Important ‘Lambach Music Collection’: Abbot Amandus Schickmayr, a great patron of music, significantly expanded the collection.
• Singing plays on Sunday afternoons: Theatre and singing plays have always been part of the Benedictine tradition. On Sundays, sacred texts and secular themes were staged in the form of singing plays in the monastery in order to vividly convey the faith.
• Reopening for Marie Antoinette: Abbot Schickmayr had the monastery theatre renovated in 1769 and decorated with paintings by Johann Wenzel Turetschek. The ceremonial opening on 23 April 1770 was in honour of Marie Antoinette, who spent the night in the monastery on her way to Paris, and included a specially written play by Father Maurus Lindemayr.