NRW Chamber Music Award

The future of our youth is close to our hearts. In particular, we would like to support young talents from the field of chamber music and give them the opportunity to present their outstanding skills to the interested public in a special ambience. For this reason, young ensembles can apply every year for the Chamber Music Promotion Prize, which has been offered since 2013.

Ensembles that have received a recommendation from the State Competition for Young Musicians or the Chamber Music Centre NRW are invited. They present themselves to a jury with representatives of the state competition for young musicians, the NRW Chamber Music Centre, the Robert Schumann University, the foundations and the State Music Academy. It is always difficult for the jury members to choose from the many outstanding young ensembles.

They decide which two ensembles will receive the NRW Chamber Music Award. In addition to prize money totalling 1,500 euros, the foundations enable each ensemble to spend several days rehearsing with desired lecturers for further musical development. In parallel, the young musicians will give a matinee concert at which the award ceremony and reception will be celebrated. This is held in rooms that change every year and are culturally and historically appropriate to the occasion. The Bagno Concert Gallery in Steinfurt, Benrath Castle in Düsseldorf and Raesfeld Castle in the Münsterland region are just some of the venues where the event has been held to date.

The Jugend & Schlösser (Youth & Castles) Foundation is a charitable foundation that emerged from the Förderkreis Kultur & Schlösser (Friends of Culture & Castles) and aims to support young people in a united Europe with regard to their personal and, in particular, professional development. Castles are important monuments of the past without whose knowledge the future cannot be shaped.

The activities of the Andreas-Mohn-Foundation focus on people and their diversity. One of its numerous projects is the promotion of the NRW Chamber Music Prize. Music paves the way for young people to recognise their own talents and potential, to experience creativity and to develop their personality. These activities are crystallized in the NRW Chamber Music Promotion Prize. Both foundations give young talented people a forum here to further strengthen their chamber music skills and develop their musical talent and personality in the context of making music together.