Friedemann Eichhorn (Head of the Jury)
In 2002, Friedemann Eichhorn was appointed as one of the youngest violin professors in Germany at the Hochschule für Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar and for many years served as director of the Institute for Strings and Harps. He is Artistic Director of the International LOUIS SPOHR Competition for Young Violinists in Weimar as well as a liaison lecturer of the PE Förderkreis für Studierende der Musik e. V. and has also been director of the Kronberg Academy Masters since 2012. Friedemann Eichhorn was born in Münster in 1971 and grew up in Speyer. Under Prof. Velery Gradow he graduated from the Musikhochschule Mannheim and under Alberto Lysy at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad. As a scholarship holder he received tuition from Margaret Pardee at the Juilliard School in New York. In addition to his studies as a performer, he also completed a degree in musicology at the University of Mainz and received his doctorate from Prof. Dr. med. Christoph-Hellmut Mahling. He has performed with orchestras such as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and the SWR Radio Orchestra and has performed with Yuri Bashmet, Saschko Gawriloff, Gidon Kremer, Yehudi Menuhin, Igor Oistrakh and Gerhard Oppitz. As a chamber musician, he regularly collaborates with Julius Berger, José Gallardo, Alexander Hülshoff and Thomas Müller-Pering. Friedemann Eichhorn has appeared at places such as the Munich Gasteig, Schauspielhaus Berlin, the Philharmonie St. Petersburg and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and has recorded numerous CDs. He has been the recipient of the George Enescu Medal awarded by the Romanian Cultural Institute since 2005.