Ga Hyun Cho
1st Prize: €6,000
plus five sets of strings from Pirastro, freely chosen.

Byol Kang
2nd Prize: €2,500
plus three sets of strings from Pirastro, freely chosen.

Artiom Shishkov
3rd Prize: €1,500
plus one set of strings from Pirastro, freely chosen.

The Marion Rostal Prize for the best performance of the commissioned work for violin is awarded to
Yoon Jung Yang
for the performance of the work Josephine, the Singer by Martin Bresnick.

The Audience Prize of €1,000 is awarded to
Ga Hyun Cho
This prize is sponsored by Pirastro GmbH and Kogge & Gateau, Atelier for Violin Making and Restoration.

Peijun Xu
1st Prize: €6,000
plus five sets of strings from Pirastro, freely chosen.

Johannes Pennetzdorfer
2nd Prize: €2,500
plus three sets of strings from Pirastro, freely chosen.

Kyoungmin Park
3rd Prize: €1,500
plus one set of strings from Pirastro, freely chosen.

The Marion Rostal Prize for the best performance of the commissioned work for viola is awarded to
Johannes Pennetzdorfer
for the performance of the work Sketches for Siegbert by Brett Dean.

The Audience Prize of €1,000 is awarded to
Peijun Xu
This prize is sponsored by Pirastro GmbH and Kogge & Gateau, Atelier for Violin Making and Restoration.

Ga Hyun Cho made a name for herself with her great success as the First Prize winner of the Washington International Competition for Strings in 2009. She had previously achieved success, including a second prize at the Leopold Mozart Competition and at the Young Concert Artist International Audition in 2008. Another significant award is the second prize at the International Competition Città di Brescia in 2010, where she also received the special prize for the best interpretation of the contemporary piece Grip by Carlo Boccadoro. Ga Hyun Cho began playing the violin at the age of four and made her solo debut with the Korean Symphony Orchestra at the age of ten. Further solo appearances have taken her to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul National Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Sendai Philharmonic, the Haffner Sinfonietta, and the Accademia Musicale di Schio. She has also been engaged as concertmaster in various orchestras, such as the Seoul National University Symphony Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as in the NEC Chamber Orchestra and the NEC Opera Orchestra. Ga Hyun Cho is a graduate of Seoul National University and the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston. She is currently enrolled at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music as a "Starling Fellow" under Midori Goto.

Byol Kang, born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1985, began playing the violin at the age of eight. At twelve, she was accepted as a young student into the class of Christiane Hutcap at the University of Music and Theatre in Rostock, before moving to the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf in 2003. There, she studied with Michael Gaiser, completing her degree with distinction in 2010. She is currently pursuing her concert examination studies with Antje Weithaas at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. Her artistic career has been accompanied by numerous competition successes, including third prize at the Henri Marteau Competition in Hof and second prize at the International Competition "Premio Rodolfo Lipizer." Following her successful participation in the 2009 German Music Competition, she was selected for the Federal Selection of Young Artists Concerts. She has furthered her training through numerous masterclasses, including with Igor Ozim, Heime Müller, Christian Altenburger, and Nora Chastain. Byol Kang is an active soloist and chamber musician, having performed at the Franconian Music Days in Alzenau, the Ludwigsburg Palace Festival, and the Oberstdorfer Musiksommer, where she also appeared as a soloist with the orchestra academy. She has also performed with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Hof Symphony Orchestra, and the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic. Her debut CD, featuring works by Poulenc, Messiaen, Beethoven, and Brahms, was released in June 2010 under the GENUIN label. As a prizewinner of the German Musical Instrument Fund of the German Foundation for Musical Life, she plays a violin made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini from 1756.

Artiom Shishkov was born in Belarus in 1984. He began violin lessons at the age of five with Janna Kutchinskaya. Starting in 1994, he studied at the State School of Music in Belarus and later at the State Academy of Music under Eduard Kutchinsky. At the age of eight, he made his solo debut with an orchestra. He went on to achieve success in numerous competitions, including in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Germany, Russia, Belarus, the Szymanowski Competition in Poland, and the Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria. Artiom Shishkov was a recipient of scholarships from the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation, the Foundation for Russian Art, and the Presidential Scholarship of Belarus. He has performed in Poland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia. He is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Vienna under Dora Schwarzberg and is also a member of the Lipkind Quartet.

Peijun Xu, viola, born in 1985 in Shanghai, China, studied at the Shanghai Conservatory with Prof. Fei Wu and Prof. Xidi Shen. In 2005, she transferred to the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt a. M. to study with Roland Glassl, where she graduated with a diploma with distinction. She then completed both a Master’s degree and an advanced Master’s degree at the Kronberg Academy under Prof. Nobuko Imai. Peijun Xu is a laureate of numerous competitions. In 2006, she won second prize at the 9th Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition in England, where she also received the Arthur Rubinstein Memorial Prize. In 2010, she won first prize and two special prizes for the best interpretation of two works at the 6th Yuri Bashmet International Viola Competition in Moscow. In 2005, she was the youngest semifinalist at the International Competition Concours de Genève. With her string trio, she won third prize at the Second European Chamber Music Competition in Karlsruhe. In November 2011, she won second prize at the Young Concert Artist Competition in New York. Peijun Xu has also received scholarships from the University of Music in Shanghai and the Shanghai Tang Foundation. From 2007 to 2010, she was a scholarship recipient of "Villa Musica." She has played chamber music with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, and Franz Helmerson in Kronberg.

Johannes Pennetzdorfer, born in 1986 in Vöcklabruck, Upper Austria, began playing the viola at the age of eleven and was accepted into the class of Thomas Riebl and Veronika Hagen at the Mozarteum Salzburg at age fourteen. Between 1999 and 2004, he was a multiple first prize winner at the Austrian national competition prima la musica and a finalist and special prize winner at the "gradus ad parnassum" competition in 2005 in Bolzano. In addition to attending numerous masterclasses, including with Nobuko Imai and Heinrich Schiff, he received a scholarship from the Perlman Music Program in 2003 and 2004, which allowed him to work with musicians like Robert Mann, David Finckel, and Itzhak Perlman in New York, culminating in a performance at Carnegie Hall. In 2006/07, he was a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. Since 2007, he has lived in Berlin, deepening his studies with Tabea Zimmermann and Lars-Anders Tomter at the Hanns Eisler School of Music, and since 2009, with Hartmut Rohde at the University of the Arts Berlin. In 2008, he won the Instrument Competition of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben in Hamburg. In addition to his chamber music work, he has been engaged as principal violist in various chamber orchestras, such as the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, Ensemble Oriol, and Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg. In recent years, he has also focused intensively on the viola d'amore, performing as a soloist in Vivaldi’s concertos for the instrument.

Kyoungmin Park, born in 1990 in Seoul, South Korea, began her viola studies in 2003 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Prof. Ulrich Schonauer and Wolfgang Klos. In 2008, she moved to Berlin to study at the Hanns Eisler School of Music, initially with Walter Küssner and currently with Tabea Zimmermann. She won first prize at the 2008 Festival Bled and second prizes in 2010 at both the Alice Samter Competition at the UdK Berlin (as a member of her string quartet) and the International Lionel Tertis Viola Competition. She has gained concert experience as principal violist with the Kammerakademie Potsdam under the direction of Michael Sanderling, at the International Music Academy Switzerland under Seiji Ozawa, Nobuko Imai, and the Tokyo String Quartet, as well as a soloist with the Korean Symphony Orchestra at the Seoul Arts Center and the Hamburg Festival Orchestra. In 2010, Kyoungmin participated in the International Summer Academy Niedersachsen. She has also received further inspiration from masterclasses with Marius Nichiteanu, Nobuko Imai, Hartmut Rohde, and Wilfried Strehle. Since 2008, she has been a substitute player with the Berlin Philharmonic.