Prize winners 2022

Category I (born in 2009 and younger)

1st Prize

Lilja Haatainen

was born in Kempele in northern Finland in 2011. She started playing the violin at the age of three using the Suzuki method, and at the age of six she took violin lessons at Oulu Concervatory. In 2019 Lilja was accepted to the Finnish Violin Academy for young talented violinists and studied with Janne Malmivaara and Elina Vähälä. She currently lives in Porvoo, is in the 5th grade of school and studies violin at the Porvoo Institute of Music. At the age of 8 she made her debut as a soloist with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, Lilja was invited to perform at the Young Soloists Concert with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the same year, the 11-year-old also performed with the Lappeenranta Symphony Orchestra and the Finland Chamber Orchestra. Lilja won first prize in her category at the Juhani Heinonen Violin Competition in Finland in 2022.

2nd Prize

Margarita Pochebut

was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She began her musical journey at the age of 6 in 2015 at the School for Gifted Children in Kiev and since that year has already performed 30 times with an orchestra, presenting a new and complex programme each time. In the last 5 years of her active concert career, Margarita has played in important concert halls in Ukraine, Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and others, becoming a laureate of numerous international competitions during these years. She also took part in international music festivals as a chamber musician with her sister at the piano.

3rd Prize

Laura Jin

is 10 years old and from Sydney, Australia, started playing the violin at the age of six. She is currently studying with Professor Li Lin and Kenneth Renshaw at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division in New York.
Laura's highly musical, engaging and dynamic performances have already earned her first prize in the 2021 Leonid Kogan International Competition and other prizes: Gold Award in the Australia International Music Competition in 2019, and first prize in the American Protégé International Competition in 2020, 2021 Violin Rondo Vanguard Competition first prize in the 11 Years Group.



 
 

Category II (born between 2008 and 2006)

1st Prize

Anton Carus

was born in Pasadena (California, USA) in 2008. He began taking his first violin lessons and Suzuki group lessons in his hometown as early as 2011. In 2015 he came to Germany for a first longer stay and received lessons from Simone Michielsen in Munich. Two years later he was accepted into the Puchheim String Academy and in parallel received composition lessons with Johannes X. Schachtner. In 2019 Anton won 2nd prize at the Concours International Grumiaux in Brussels (Belgium) and participated in children's concerts of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. In the same year, he was accepted as a young student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. In 2020, the 14-year-old won 2nd prize at the Leonid Kogan International Competition in Brussels, followed by 3rd prize at the Piccolo Violino Magico Competition in Italy in 2021.

2nd Prize

Elza Siliņa

was born in 2006 in Riga, Latvia and has been taking violin lessons at the Jāzeps Mediņš Riga 1st Music School with Elizabete Goļikova since September 2012. She has already won numerous first prizes at national and international competitions. The young musician has performed at the Avanti Music Festival, the President of Latvia Castle, the Salacqriva International Classical Music Festival Gala and has had 14 performances with Latvian composer Raimonds Pauls. She has performed as a soloist with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of the Moscow Conservatory.

 
 

3rd Prize

Lily Sullivan

14 years old, is a scholarship student at the Music Institute of Chicago's Academy, a training centre for advanced pre-college musicians. She studies violin with Grigory Kalinovsky and is a member of the Dando Trio at the Music Institute of Chicago Academy. At the age of seven, she made her first solo orchestral debut with the Academy Sinfonia Children's Performing Arts Orchestra. At the age of nine, Lily won the Oklahoma City Philharmonic's Orchestra League's Sanford-Austin Memoriam Award and was awarded the overall prize. Numerous other prizes at national and international competitions followed, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician.

Kategorie III (Jahrgänge 2005 bis 2001)

1st Prize

Alexandra Weissbecker

was born in Marburg in 2001. She received her first violin lessons in Kazan (Russia) at the age of four and began her studies at the Kazan Special Music School in 2008. In June 2019, she moved to Austria to continue her education at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, where she is currently studying with Prof. Pierre Amoyal. Alexandra Weissbecker is an active participant in the concerts of the St. Petersburg Music House, the Vladimir Spivakov Academy and the Yuri Bashmet Academy. She has performed in the hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Great Hall of the Kazan Conservatory, the Tatar Philharmonic and the State Opera Theatre, among others. Now 21, she has won prizes at the Anton Rubinstein International Competition, the Schöntal Monastery Competition, the Yankelevich Violin Competition and the Leopold Auer Violin Competition.

2nd Prize

Moë Dierstein

was born into a family of musicians in 2005. She had her first violin lessons at the age of three with Susanne Falk in Freiburg and was admitted to the Pflügerstiftung Freiburg at the age of six. There she was coached by Ariane Mathäus, Prof. Marschner and Prof. Kussmaul. Since Moë was 11 years old, she has studied as a pre-student at the Musikhochschule Freiburg in the violin class of Prof. Simone Zgraggen. She has won many prizes at national and international competitions, including 3rd prize at the Tibor Junior Violin Competition 2021 in Sion. Moë has also been a permanent member of the Landesjugendbarockorchester Baden-Württemberg since 2018 and a permanent concertmaster and regular soloist since 2021. Since summer 2019, the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben has provided her with a violin with the label "Giovanni Grancino anno 1731" from the German Musical Instrument Fund.


 
 

3rd Prize

Hanna Pozorska

Hanna Pozorska's family has lived with music for generations. Her parents are musicians and also teachers. In 2010 she started violin lessons at the music school in Gdansk, Poland. The 18-year-old has already won numerous prizes at national and international competitions, e.g. 1st prize and a special prize at the XVII International Georg Philipp Telemann Violin Competition in Poznan, Poland in 2020. One of the most important musical experiences for her was the two-year participation in the Luslawicka Orchestra for Gifted People and the Penderecki Youth Orchestra, both under the patronage of Krzysztof Penderecki. She was concertmaster there and had many solo parts. Further concerts took her to Germany and the USA, among others. One of her greatest successes was the opening of the 2020/2021 artistic season at the Polish Baltic Philharmonic in Gdansk, where she performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Maestro George Tchitchinadze.

Special Prizes

Special Award for the best interpretation of a violin concerto:
Alexandra Weissbecker

Special Award for the best interpretation of a sonata by Beethoven/Mozart:
Kat. II: Elza Siliņa
Kat. III: Moë Dierstein

Special Award for the best interpretation of a virtuoso work:
Anton Carus

Special Award for the best interpretation of a work composed after 1950:
Artur Trælnes

Special Award for special achievements:
Edna Unseld

Scholarship for participation in the Weimar Master Classes:
Oleksandr Ahafonov

EMCY-Prize:
Alexandra Weissbecker