The Jury 2024

(Chairman)

studied singing in Munich, Detmold and Hamburg, is a prizewinner of the Belvedere Competition Vienna and has been a guest at a number of renowned national and international opera houses for many years. His great musical curiosity gave him an early reputation as one of the singers with the most interesting repertoire in his field.

In recent years he made his debut with great success at the Munich State Opera in a new production of Zimmermann's Soldiers as Mary (Kirill Petrenko / Director: Andreas Kriegenburg). He also took on this role at the Teatro Real Madrid in 2018. At the Munich Opera Festival in the summer of 2018, he will make a guest appearance in the world premiere of Nikolaus Brass' "Die Vorübergehenden" with the role of the father.

He sang the Kommerzienrat in Intermezzo (Strauss) at the Theater an der Wien, Tschekunoff and Don Juan in Totenhaus at the Staatsoper Hannover, Panthée / Mercure in Les Troyens at the Staatsoper Stuttgart and Hans Zender's Chief Joseph as well as Dr. Vigelius in Schreker's Der ferne Klang at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden. At the Leipzig Opera he sang in Luca Lombardi's Dmitri and Schönberg's Von heute auf morgen, at the Nuremberg Opera prospero in Luca Lombardi's Der Sturm, the Semperoper Dresden experienced him as Jupiter in Strauss' Die Liebe der Danae. In 2013 he made his debut in Georg Friedrich Haas' world premiere of the opera Thomas with the role of Matthias at the Schwetzingen Castle Festival. Further guest performances have taken him to the Ruhrtriennale, the Volksoper Wien, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Opéra National de Lyon, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. In 2011 he made his debut in Carmina Burana at the Munich Opera Festival.

The singer is also very interested in the Baroque repertoire. He has participated in scenic productions of Filosofo Nella Campagna, Serva Padrona, Serva Scaltra, Pimpinone, Almira, Saul and Jephta and has performed with orchestras such as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

He has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Ivor Bolton, Kirill Petrenko, Michael Gielen, Phillippe Jordan, Thomas Hengelbrock, Sylvain Cambreling, Manfred Honeck, Christopher Hoogwood and Roy Goodman, as well as with directors such as Peter Mussbach, Christoph Loy, Barrie Kosky, Andreas Kriegenburg and Stephan Kimmig.

studied at the University of Music, Hamburg, with Prof. Annie Schoonus and Prof. Judith Beckmann and is, among other things, a prize winner at the Belvedere Competition in Vienna and the Federal Singing Competition. She was also awarded the Otto Kasten Prize of the German Stage Association and the Music Prize of the NDR Hamburg. The artist was appointed Berlin Chamber Singer in 2011 due to her long-standing collaboration with the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Michaela Kaune is a guest at the most important international opera houses (Sieglinde in WALKÜRE in Beijing and Shanghai as well as at the Grand Théâtre de Genève; Marschallin in Strauss' ROSENKAVALIER at the Glyndebourne Festival at the Ópera de Colombia in Bogotá, the Opéra de Paris under Philippe Jordan, the Bavarian State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the China National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing; Eva in DIE MEISTERSINGER at the Bayreuth Festival).

In the concert area, the soprano made her Elbphilharmonie debut with the final song from CAPRICCIO under Marek Janowski. Particularly noteworthy are the collaborations with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Semperoper Dresden, as well as guest contracts at the Opéra National de Paris, the Vienna State Opera, the New National Theater, Tokyo, the Nederlandse Opera, La Monnaie, Brussels, and the Grand Théâtre de Geneva, the Flemish Opera Antwerp and the Zurich Opera, as well as at the Salzburg Festival, the Bayreuth Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the Budapest Festival, the Maggio Musicale, Florence, the Festival de Radio France, the Musikfest Berlin, and Carnegie Hall New York and with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo.

The concert singer's extensive repertoire extends from the Baroque to the 20th century. The works of Mahler and Strauss are particularly important. A number of CD recordings are available, including STRAUSS' ORCHESTRA LIEDER with the NDR Hannover under Eiji Oue, Henze's NIGHT PIECES AND ARIAS with the NDR Hamburg under Peter Ruzicka, Mahler's 2nd SYNFONIE with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo under Jun Märkl and Penderecki's 8th. SINFONIE (Songs of Transience) with the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra under Antoni Wit, Janáček's JENUFA (DVD Deutsche Oper Berlin) and Mahler's 8th SYNFONIE with the Dortmund Philharmonic under Gabriel Feltz.

born in Poznań, for 10 years has been a choir singer and soloist of Poznański Chór Chłopięcy [The Poznań Boys' Choir] of Jerzy Kurczewski. He graduated from the Catholic University of Lublin - the faculty of musicology, the Postgraduate Conducting Course at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz and the Faculty of Singing and Acting at the Academy of Music in Poznań (honors degree in the class of prof. Ewa Wdowicka).

In 1990, he received a scholarship from the Mozart Society and the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg where he studied the interpretation of Mozart music under the supervision of prof. E. Häfliger and E. Tappa.

Wojciech Maciejowski is a laureate of three prizes at the Ada Sari Vocal Artistry Competition (1988), and the 1st prize at the Moniuszko Competition in Warsaw (1989). Since 1988, he has been cooperating with opera theatres in Poland (Poznań, Bytom, Kraków, Łódź and Szczecin) and abroad (Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Salzburg, Frankfurt a/Main, Prague and Bern). He has also performed during well-known festivals, such as in Łańcut, Kudowa, Brighton, Tokyo, Prague (the Prague Spring), Vienna (Wiener Klassik) and Salzburg (Mozartwocke). Maciejowski cooperated with such well-known conductors as: Gerd Albrecht, Sylvan Camberling, Silvio Varviso, Hans Zender, Bernard Heitink, Stefan Stuligrosz, Tomasz Bugaj, Wojciech Michniewski, Tadeusz Wojciechowski and Jerzy Salwarowski. His accomplishments encompass numerous radio, television and CD recordings in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Austria and the United States.

Since 1996 he has been a solo singing teacher at the Academy of Music in Poznań. In 2003, he received a post-doctoral degree (Polish: doktor habilitowany) in arts by the Academy of Music in Warsaw. In 2010, he was awarded the title of the professor of music by the President of the Republic of Poland. Since 2008 till 2015, he was the Dean of the faculty of Vocal Arts of the Academy of Music in Poznań. He conducts master vocal classes and is a juror in international competitions.

belonged for more than 25 years to the internationally successful sopranos specializing in early music, richly praised for her deep understanding of the colorful Baroque repertoire. She made numerous recordings for labels including Harmonia Mundi, CPO and BIS, many of them award winning. For many years she regularly taught singing at the Royal Music College in Stockholm as well as music festivals around the world.

In 2007 she was appointed member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music and in 2015 elected as their president. She is also the president of the Birgit Nilsson Foundation, presenting the world’s largest award within the field of classical music.

Following many large musical projects she was in 2018 appointed as the CEO of Music I Syd, the regional music institution in southern Sweden, a position she leaves in the summer in order to become the executive and artistic director of Konserthuset Stockholm and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. 

born in Emsland in Lower Saxony and grew up in Bad Zwischenahn, began his first studies and C church musician training in Oldenburg/i.Ol. at LKMD Dieter Weiss. He then studied Protestant church music and the artistic postgraduate course in organ with Prof. Michael Schneider and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Stockmeier at the Cologne University of Music. He won first prize at the 2nd International Gottfried Silbermann Competition in Freiberg (1995).

From 1997-2002 Frank Dittmer was cantor and organist in Stralsund, from 2002 cathedral organist in Greifswald and regional church music director, initially of the Pomeranian Evangelical Church, from 2009 also of the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Mecklenburg, and from 2012 in the Mecklenburg and Pomeranian districts of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in north Germany. In 2011, the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald awarded him an honorary professorship, and since 2021 he has been a full professor of church music with a focus on choir conducting at the university's Institute for Church Music and Musicology. Frank Dittmer regularly acts as a juror at choir competitions, including the German Choir Competition. Radio recordings on WDR and NDR as well as CD recordings document the artistic work. Concerts at home and abroad.