Kranichstein Music Prize 2025 awarded

At the end of the Darmstadt Summer Course 2025, the Kranichstein Music Prize was awarded on August 2. This year, two composer-performers were honored: Italian double bassist and composer Pietro Elia Barcellona (*1997) and Hong Kong-born Canadian Kalun Leung (*1988), trombonist and composer.

The prize is endowed with a total of 6,000 euros and will be divided between the two winners.

The independent jury, which attended concerts, workshops, and open spaces at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for two weeks, consisted of composer and performer Oxana Omelchuk, music journalist Leonie Reineke, and musicologist Michael Kunkel.

The jury’s reasoning:

“Kalun Leung is an exceptionally versatile artist. As a trombonist of outstanding technical skills and a highly sensitive dialogue partner, he operates in a variety of aesthetic contexts. The jury was impressed by Leung’s development of the digital tool “mubone,” which—originally conceived as an “augmented instrument” for the trombone—offers a creative platform for distributed authorship by performers and composers. The technological and integrative potential of this tool, as well as Leung’s artistic ideas, promise exciting collaborations in the future.

Double bassist Pietro Elia Barcellona captivates audiences within seconds – as an interpreter of solo literature as well as in improvisations or his own original “overwritings” of existing works. His innovative, forward-looking approach to the instrument, his technical precision and virtuosity, and his confident navigation between fidelity to the work and his own creative approaches convinced the jury in every respect.”

The Kranichstein Music Prize has been awarded to active participants at the end of the Darmstadt Summer Courses since 1952. To date, a total of 185 prize winners have been honored. For many of them, the prestigious award marked an important step at the beginning of their careers as musicians, ensembles, or composers.

In addition, the jury awarded three scholarships for participation in the Darmstadt Summer Course 2027 to composers Carmel Curiel (Israel), Filolaos Kougias (Switzerland/Greece), and Ilona Perger (Austria).

This year, the jury honored additional musicians with honorable mentions: composers Laila Arafah (UK), Isaac Blumfield (USA), and Nicolas Speda (Germany), as well as violinist Bárbara Cotrim (Portugal) and flutist Clément Michelot (France).

Around 380 active participants from 49 countries took part in this year’s Darmstadt Summer Courses from 19 July to 2 August.