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New image, new funding, new program- after a difficult year, the ARD Music Competition, Germany's biggest international competition, returns with a superb 2025 edition

As the finals of ARD International Music Competition, described by Sir Simon Rattle as “Music’s Olympic Games”, concluded, it's time for a look back: despite the heavy funding cuts and political turmoil around Germany's biggest and most important competition, the ARD has recovered and presented a brilliant 2025 edition, while introducing a new graphic design, new programs, and an ever stronger media coverage. Supported by new funding, the competition will once again offer 4 categories, beginning in 2026.

More than 600 contestants applied from which around 150 musicians from 32 countries were selected to take part in this year's competition, displaying their musical prowess to the top-flight juries in three categories: Piano, Trumpet, and Clarinet. Here are the winners.

In the Clarinet category Elad Navon (Jerusalem) took first prize. Second prize went to Hongyi Jiang (Wenzhou) and third prize to Lev Zhuravskii (St Petersburg). 
In the Trumpet final round Robin Paillet (France) was the winner. Second prize went to Sandro Hirsch, and third prize to Raphaël Horrach.
Finally, in the last round in the Piano category, the first prize went to Liya Wang (Beijing). Second prize went to Elias Ackerley (Shrewsbury) and third prize to Jiwon Yang (Seoul).

This year’s prize money, including numerous special prizes donated by our partners and sponsors, amounted to over € 130.000.

Elad Navon, First Prize (Clarinet)

“What we had the privilege of witnessing this year was much more than just a competition for highly talented musicians – it was a festival of encounters. Talented young people from all over the world thrilled music lovers with their performances and proved yet again that music can facilitate understanding that transcends linguistic and cultural frontiers. In addition, the ARD Music Competition radiates an impressive aura on the digital level too: a constantly expanding community of fans from around the world follows the qualifying heats on ARD Klassik’s new YouTube channel and on various social media platforms – from South Korea to Mexico and even further afield.”
– Meret Forster, Artistic Director of the ARD International Music Competition

Robin Paillet, First Prize (Trumpet)

Liya Wang, First Prize (Piano)

From the German-language Sueddeutsche Zeitung:

They would have liked to award three first prizes, Reinhold Friedrich concludes. He is the chairman of the jury for the trumpet category. And the jury did not make it easy for itself – this was very palpable during the prize ceremony at this year's ARD International Music Competition in Munich's Herkulessaal. Talents, Friedrich continues, are sprouting up like mushrooms. This shows the calibre the internationally significant music competition had this year, not least among the trumpeters. And indeed, the way Sandro Hirsch and Raphael Horrach played Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See" was no less good than Robin Paillet's interpretation. But the young Frenchman won first prize for his immensely colourful, indeed fiery playing, whereas Hirsch (second prize) possessed primarily fine shades of grey in the jazzy passages and sounded more introverted. He had still been ahead in the semi-final with Joseph Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major.

The final rounds proved no less thrilling among the clarinettists, as the bar was set equally high for everyone with the Mozart Concerto at the Prinzregenten Theater. The Israeli Elad Navon excelled not only there but also in the final with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sasha Scolnik-Brower, performing Aaron Copland's Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Harp and Piano... the jury reached its decision here after a record-breakingly short deliberation. Their judgement was so clear and also comprehensible for the audience that the tallying of votes for the Audience Prize took significantly longer.

The commissioned work – a piece composed specifically for the competition – also served as the litmus test for the pianists. And as a listener, one was glad to hear it six times in the semi-final, as the complex composition only gradually revealed itself. Especially since each semi-finalist played it differently, realised the performance instructions differently, and thus brought Enno Poppe's "Zaun" ("Fence") with its soaring clusters, behind which soft, heartfelt, almost tonal phrases repeatedly shimmered through, to light in different ways....

The fact that the piano category, alongside the string quartet (returning in 2026) and voice (returning in 2027), is one of the most popular categories of the ARD International Music Competition could already be experienced in the second round: in the afternoon, Bayerischer Rundfunk's Studio 1 was always full, and for the final, there were hardly any seats left in the Herkulessaal either.

Elias Ackerley, Liya Wang and Jiwon Yang- the piano winners of 2025

Laureates:
Piano
First Prize: Liya Wang (23)
Second Prize: Elias Ackerley (24)
Third Prize: Jiwon Yang (24)

Clarinet
First Prize: Elad Navon (25)
Second Prize: Hongyi Jiang (22)
Third Prize: Lev Zhuravskii (25)

Trumpet
First Prize: Robin Paillet (23)
Second Prize: Sandro Hirsch (28)
Third Prize: Raphael Horrach (24)

 

Jury
Piano
Homero Francesch, Simone Dinnerstein, Ewa Kupiec, Maki Namekawa, Pascal Rogé, Antti Siirala, Anna Vinnitskaya

Clarinet
Ernesto Molinari, Francois Benda, Richard Hosford, William R. Hudgins, Sharon Kam, Sabine Meyer, Annelien Van Wauwe

Trumpet
Reinhold Friedrich, Andreï Kavalinski, Hannes Läubin, Christopher Martin, Anne McAneney, Sergei Nakariakov, Gábor Richter

 

Artists:
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/ Sasha Scolnik-Brower, conductor

 

 

©WFIMC 2025/FR