Music Connects: Digital Piano for the Welz-Haus
12/02/2025Professor Eva-Bettina Bröcker has donated a digital piano to the university. It is used at concerts in the Welz-Haus and is available to international guests.
For a good nine years, the former Director of the University Dermatology Clinic was a member of the SCIAS Board of Directors at the University of Würzburg (Siebold-Collegium, Institute for Advanced Studies), together with Professors Ulrike Holzgrabe and Michael Erler. During this time, Eva-Bettina Bröcker was responsible, among other things, for organising musical contributions for lecture evenings, vernissages and other public events.
What proved to be difficult: SCIAS was unable to provide the musicians with a piano in its rooms in the Welz-Haus. That is why professor Bröcker has now donated a high-quality digital piano to the university.
University Chancellor Uwe Klug is delighted with the exemplary donation. "It is anything but a matter of course that you are giving us this gift," he thanked the donor at the signing of the donation contract.
Pianist Chose the Instrument
The Würzburg pianist Rudolf Ramming selected the instrument. It was also tested for its suitability as a replacement for a "real" piano by the American pianist Johanna Kvam, who worked as a guest accompanist at the Mainfrankentheater Würzburg, and found to be good.
The instrument is also available to SCIAS guests. Quite a few of the international fellows play the piano or other instruments. And wherever music is played, listeners are quickly found. In this way, the piano supports the SCIAS goal of bringing people from all over the world into contact with each other.
The new SCIAS board of directors should find it easier to organise music in the Welz-Haus in future. SCIAS is currently headed by Professor Holger Braunschweig and Professors Stephanie Catani and Cordula Matthies.
About the SCIAS
The Welz-Haus is an important building block in the university's internationalisation strategy. It offers up to 20 outstanding guest researchers from all over the world a temporary home in the city centre. With public events and other activities, SCIAS, which is housed in the Welz-Haus, aims to connect the guests with JMU researchers and students, as well as with the urban community.
