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1967 – 1972
Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava (auxiliary historical sciences)
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1972 – 1989
Assistant professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovak University of Technology (SVŠT) Bratislava (1972 – 1976), at the Faculty of Architecture, SVŠT Bratislava (1976 – 1988), Department of Theory and History of Architecture, Drawing and Modelling
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1978
PhDr. degree, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava
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1983 – 1988
External doctoral candidate at the Institute of Art Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) Bratislava; in 1988 defended dissertation and obtained CSc. degree (Candidate of Sciences)
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1988 – 1989
Head of the workshop for restoration of historical organs at the Slovak Music Fund
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Since 1990
external lecturer of organology and history of the organ at the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU) in Bratislava
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Since 1990
external expert on organs at the State Institute for Monument Preservation (from 1991 Slovak Institute for Monument Preservation, today the Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic)
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Since 1996
member responsible for organs at the Evangelical Committee of Church Music
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Since 1997
co-author and scientific guarantor of the survey project of pipe organs in Slovakia at the National Music Centre (from 1999 Music Centre)
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2014 – 2020
member of the Expert Commission for Historical Organs at the Music Centre
PhDr. Marian Alojz Mayer, CSc. was a leading Slovak organologist, musicologist, and university lecturer. He specialized in the manufacture and maintenance of musical instruments. In his research, he focused on pipe organs in Slovakia as well as broader issues regarding the development of the pipe organ and the history of organ builders who worked in Slovakia from the earliest times to the present.
He was the scientific guarantor of a nationwide survey project of pipe organs in Slovakia, conducted at the Music Centre, to which he contributed extensive original research in many locations across Slovakia.
He was the author of several monographs and studies on Slovak organs and organ-building workshops. He regularly published scholarly articles on these topics and lectured at musicological and organological conferences (Bratislava, Budapest, Trossingen, Varaždin).
M. A. Mayer collaborated on the general restorations of important historical organs, especially those made by Martin Šaško from Brezová pod Bradlom, but also on newer instruments (Bratislava – Blumentál, Great Evangelical Church, etc.). As a member of the Expert Commission for Historical Organs, he participated in the revision and proposals for additions to organs listed in the Central Register of Monument Fund. Even after finishing his work on the commission (2021), he continued his scholarly activities and prepared the manuscript for the second expanded edition of the monograph Martin Šaško a jeho organárska škola (Martin Šaško and his Organ Building School).
In 1992, he contributed to the establishment of the international festival Slovak Historical Organs by selecting organs and preparing expert texts about them from the festival’s inception. He was a member of several expert and advisory committees and was often invited as an expert to acceptance commissions for newly built or restored historical organs, as well as to selection committees for the construction of new organs in Slovakia.
At the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU) in Bratislava, M. A. Mayer taught organology and the history of the organ as an external lecturer.