The foundation was established on 11 December 2000 by ecclesiastical law with the recognition of the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Culture as a church foundation under public law with legal capacity. Through numerous projects, it promotes not only church music and the quality of education and training at the only university for Protestant church music in Bavaria, but also the future of church music in general.
The AEK was founded in Bayreuth in 1973. Since then, it has accompanied and supported the development of the renowned church music training centre and today's University of Protestant Church Music in Bayreuth. It works closely with the university's funding foundation.
Prof. Thomas Albus has been chairman of the AEK since October 2021.
You can find the AEK's homepage here.
Since the 2018/19 winter semester, there has been a cooperation agreement between the University of Bayreuth and the University of Protestant Church Music. Initially, it regulated the participation of students from the university in courses in the fields of education and psychology. University students have access in particular to practical music courses and the university's choirs. For the 2019/20 winter semester, the cooperation agreement has now been extended to include music and theatre studies at the University.
A cooperation agreement between Markgräfin-Wilhelmine-Gymnasium Bayreuth and the university was concluded for the 2019/20 winter semester. This agreement transfers the "university upper school" model to the cooperation between schools and church music colleges and serves the purpose of developing existing synergies at the institutional level and enabling the promotion of musical talent in Upper Franconia through cooperation between schools and universities.
The University of Protestant Church Music was the first ecclesiastical music training institution to offer the Germany Scholarship. Thanks in particular to the support of the university's foundation and private donors, students have been able to receive this scholarship over the years. We are very pleased about this! The call for applications for the 2025/26 winter semester can be found here.