Ceremonial matriculation
University of Music Weimar welcomes 171 new students from around the world
There is great excitement at the university about the new students: the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar is welcoming 219 new students for the 2025/2026 winter semester. They were officially enrolled on Monday, 13 October in a festive ceremony with lots of music in the Fürstenhaus ballroom. They were welcomed by University President Prof. Anne-Kathrin Lindig and Leonard Friese, Chair of the Student Council. This brings the total number of young musicians, music educators and musicologists currently studying in the European city of culture to 870.
Of the 219 newly enrolled students, 171 are enrolled in Weimar for the first time – the others are transferring from a bachelor's to a master's programme, for example. The 171 ‘freshers’ are divided into 86 German and 85 international students. They come to Weimar from all over the world – including all regions of Asia, South America and many European countries.
The largest increases this time are recorded by the Institute for Wind Instruments and Percussion with 48, and the Institute for Musicology Weimar-Jena (with Cultural Management) with a total of 44 students. This is followed by the Institutes for String Instruments and Harp and the Institute for Music Education and Church Music with 26 new students each, the Institute for Voice | Music Theatre with 24, the Institute for Piano with 14, the Institute for New Music and Jazz with 13, the Institute for Guitar with 12, the Institute for Conducting and Opera Coaching with 8, and the Institute for Early Music with 3 new students. A total of 22 students from all over Europe are coming to the Weimar University of Music through mobility programmes (e.g. Erasmus+).
During the enrolment ceremony, which began at 6 p.m. in the Fürstenhaus ballroom, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) prize (DAAD Prize 2025) was also awarded to violin student Rodrigo Gonzalo Pandorfa Garrido. He received the certificate from Ly Tran, Head of the International Office.
Another violin student was the recipient of the Franz Liszt Prize 2025 from the university's Friends' Association. The laudatory speech for violinist Friedrich Borggrefe was given by the association's chairwoman, Prof. Ulrike Rynkowski-Neuhof. Both Borggrefe and Pandorfa Garrido expressed their gratitude musically with an excerpt from Johann Sebastian Bach's Double Concerto for Two Violins, BWV 1043, accompanied on the piano by Oksana Andriyenko.
[10 October 2025]