Deutscher Dirigentenpreis


The German Conducting Award is an international competition for concert and opera conducting and serves to promote young conductors of all nations who are younger than 33 years of age.
WWW dirigentenforum.de/deutsc...

History of the prize

The German Conducting Award is organised by the Deutscher Musikrat in partnership with the Kölner Philharmonie, the Cologne Opera, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and the WDR Symphony Orchestra. As a cultural partner, the competition is accompanied by the West German Radio's WDR 3 culture wave. The prize was first awarded in 1995 as the Prize of the to outstanding scholarship holders of the support programme. It was awarded internationally for the first time in 2017 and is held every two years. A unique selling point is the inclusion of the genres of opera and concert in the repertoire. The competition is open to the public from the second round onwards.

Prize money

The prize is endowed with a total of 33,000 euros, making it one of the highest endowed conducting competitions in Europe.
  • 1st prize: 15,000 euros
  • 2nd prize: 10,000 euros
  • 3rd prize: 5,000 euros
  • Kurt Masur Audience Award: 3,000 euros
The winners receive concert engagements and assistances at opera houses and German partner orchestras.

Jury

The members of the jury change and for the first award in 2017 consisted of:

Prize winners

Winners of the German Conducting Award (from 2017)

  • 2023:
  • * Dayner Tafur-Díaz
  • * Nathanaël Iselin
  • * Claudio Novati
  • * Dayner Tafur-Díaz
  • 2021:
  • * Martijn Dendievel
  • * Aivis Greters
  • * Hangyul Chung
  • * Hangyul Chung
  • 2019:
  • * Julio García Vico
  • * Gábor Hontvári
  • * Chloé van Soeterstède
  • 2017:
  • * Hossein Pishkar
  • * Dominic Beikirch
  • * Anna Rakitina
  • * Vladimir Yaskorski

Prizewinners of the Conductors' Forum (1995–2015)