Rooted in an illustrious 200-year regional music tradition dating back to 1823 (the founding of the Linz Musical Society) and bearing the name of monumental Austrian symphonist Anton Bruckner (1824–1896), Anton Bruckner Private University (Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität — ABPU) is one of Austria's elite universities for music, drama, and dance. Accredited as a private university under the Austrian Higher Education Act and heavily subsidized and owned by the Federal Province of Upper Austria (Land Oberösterreich), ABPU combines the individualized, master-class conservatory training of a premier performing arts academy with modern research, pedagogical rigor, and public-equivalent tuition rates. In autumn 2015, ABPU inaugurated its iconic new university headquarters at Hagenstraße 57, at the foot of Linz’s scenic Pöstlingberg hill. Designed by Architekturbüro 1 ZT GmbH as an organic, sculpture-like building featuring dynamic vertical timber louvers and constructed to rigorous passive-house standards, the campus houses all three artistic divisions (Music, Drama, and Dance) under one roof. The state-of-the-art facility features four world-class performance halls: the Großer Saal (300-seat main concert hall), the Orgelsaal and Kammermusiksaal, the innovative Sonic Lab (a pioneering intermedia computer music and 3D ambisonics acoustic laboratory), and the versatile Studiobühne / Black Box theater. With over 850 students from more than 50 countries guided by 220 internationally acclaimed artist-professors, ABPU fosters creative individuality across classical instrumental and vocal performance, contemporary dance pedagogy (through the Institute of Dance Arts — IDA), jazz and improvised music (JIM), composition and media arts, drama and acting, and music pedagogy (IGP).

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