Charlotte Melkonian will receive €5,000 at the opening concert of the 2026 Usedom Music Festival, where she will also perform as soloist
13-year-old cellist Charlotte Melkonian has been announced as the winner of the Usedom Music Prize for 2026. She will receive €5,000 at the opening night of the Usedom Music Festival in Peenemünde, Germany, on 19 September.
Melkonian will perform as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic under Robert Trevino.
The prize is awarded annually to young artists of the Baltic Sea region and is facilitated by the festival and the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation.
Melkonian has been a junior student at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2023 and is mentored by David Geringas. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in New York in 2024 and this year won the use of a cello by Stefano Scarampella from the German Musical Instrument Fund.
’Charlotte Melkonian is an exceptional talent on the violoncello,’ says the festival’s dramaturge Dr Jan Brachmann. ’For her age she shows remarkable maturity.’
The 2026 Usedom Music Festival runs from 19 September to 10 October.
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