Hannover's Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Announces 2024 Semi-Finalists

Currently being streamed LIVE on The Violin Channel, the competition offers €30,000 to its winner alongside a host of other prizes

The twelfth edition of the Joseph Joachim Violin Competition is currently taking place in Hannover, Germany between September 16 and 28, 2024. The competition is run by the Stiftung Niedersachsen and takes place every three years. You can watch the competition LIVE on The Violin Channel. 

Open to violinists born between September 29, 1991, and September 16, 2008, the competition's semi-finalists include:

• Kyumin Park, 27
• Alexandra Weissbecker, 22
• Xunyue Zhang, 20
• Angela Chan, 27
• Eunjoong Park, 23
• Jacques Forestier, 19
• Alexander Won-Ho Kim, 31
• Louisa Staples, 24

In the Semi-finals, which will take place in two rounds, these violinists will perform with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Kuss Quartet.

A significant amount of prize money is available: the winner will receive €30,000, while each finalist will receive €10,000. There are several other prizes, including several concert engagements, the 3-year loan of a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini from the Fritz Behrens Foundation, and a 2,000 Euro Audience Award.

Additionally, the Warner Classics label will select one person from all participants whose debut album it will communicate and market internationally, while G. Henle Verlag will award a music voucher worth 2,000 Euro to the finalists.

For the pre-selection stage, applicants will need to prepare the third and fourth movements of Bartók's Sonata for solo violin, Sz 117 (to be played from memory), as well as a complete work for violin and piano by Franz Schubert (played from the score).

A complete list of repertoire required for the competition can be found here. It includes a newly commissioned work by composer Enno Poppe.

The finalists will perform with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under the direction of Stephan Zilias.

At the 2024 edition, the competition's jury will comprise Juliane Banse (chair), as well as violinists Ana Chumachenco, Lorenza Borrani, Ning Feng, Liza Ferschtman, Gerhard Schuld, violist Kim Kashkashian, pianist Robert Levin, and conductor Stephan Zilias.

At the 2021 edition, rules around the jury were updated, and now it is standard practice to include a number of musicians who are not violinists.