Outstanding services to the work of Franz Liszt
Awarding of the ‘Franz Liszt Honorary Prize’ to Nike Wagner
The NEW LISZT FOUNDATION and the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar invite you to a joint celebration. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Franz Liszt's visit to the ‘Grand Ducal Orchestra School’, today's Weimar Music University, the ‘Franz Liszt Honorary Prize’ will be awarded on Thursday, 15 May at 5 p.m. in the Saal Am Palais. The prize will be awarded to the publicist and dramaturge Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Nike Wagner, who also has close ties to the university as an honorary doctor.
The award ceremony will include a welcome address by Thuringia's Minister President Prof. Dr. Mario Voigt, who is the patron of the award. The laudatory speech will be given by Prof. Dr. Wolfram Huschke. Music will be performed by scholarship holders of the NEW LISZT FOUNDATION.
Admission is free and the public is warmly welcome!
Nike Wagner has rendered outstanding services to the work of her great-great-grandfather Franz Liszt. In Weimar, the musicologist and literary scholar is remembered above all as the influential and creative director of the ‘pèlerinages’ art festival from 2004 to 2013. She also made an important contribution as chair of the honorary committee for the 2011 Thuringian theme year ‘Franz Liszt. A European in Thuringia’.
The ‘Franz Liszt Honorary Prize’ of the NNEW LISZT FOUNDATION was awarded for the first time in 2011 to the pianist Alfred Brendel. Other recipients include Kurt Masur (also in 2011), Leslie Howard (2017), the Kutrowatz brothers (2019), Martin Haselböck (2021) and Cyprien Katsaris (2023). From 2017 to 2021, Nike Wagner herself was chair of the award committee for this prize, which she is now receiving this year for her life's work.
A few hours before the award ceremony, Nike Wagner will be seen in another role in Weimar: as patron, she will open the ‘Refugium Franz Liszt’ on 15 May at 12:00 a.m. in the rear section of the ALTENBURG (Jenaer Straße 3, Weimar).
This new private museum, established by Weimarer Wohnstätte GmbH in cooperation with the Deutsche Liszt-Gesellschaft e.V., opens Franz Liszt's former living quarters to the public. Specifically, it comprises Liszt's ‘Blue Room,’ which he also called his ‘study and work room,’ the prayer room, and a library with the Muck Collection.
Nike Wagner is one of the most prominent cultural scholars of our time. As a critical intellectual, she became widely known for her committed and thoroughly risk-taking examination of the work of her great-grandfather Richard Wagner and its lasting influence on the Bayreuth Festival. She has professed her admiration for the work, influence and attitudes of her great-great-grandfather Franz Liszt with great clarity.
From 2004 to 2013, Nike Wagner was artistic director of the Weimar art festival ‘pèlerinages’, followed by the Beethoven Festival in Bonn. She has been honorary patron of the German Liszt Society since 2004 and, since 2019, honorary president of the NEW LISZT FOUNDATION and patron of the Liszt Biennale Thüringen.
[6 May 2025]