Winners announced for 2026 Michael Hill International Violin Competition

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The final round of the 25th Michael Hill International Violin Competition took place on 6 June at the Auckland Town Hall in Auckland, New Zealand, with the three finalists performing concertos with the Auckland Philharmonia and conductor Alan Burabayev.

First prize was awarded to Italian–Australian violinist Beatrice Colombis, 22, who received a cash prize of NZD40,000 (£17,600), an opportunity to make a recording on the Atoll Label, a personalised professional development programme, a Michael Hill gold and diamond pendant, and a tour with Chamber Music New Zealand and the Auckland Philharmonia in 2027.

Colombis also won the NZD1,000 (£440) prize for the best performance of the commissioned work, Chasm by Salina Fisher, the Sheila Smith prize of a three-year loan of a Domenico Montagnana violin, facilitated by Rare Violins of New York’s In Consortium platform, and the audience prize.

The second prize of NZD10,000 (£4,350) was won by Chinese violinist Tianyou Ma and the third prize of NZD5,000 (£2,180) by German–Ukrainian violinist Jakow Pavlenko. Pavlenko also won the NZD1,000 (£440) chamber music prize, following his performance in the semi-final round.

The fourth prize of NZD4,000 went to South Korean violinist Hyein Koo, the fifth prize of NZD3,000 to Chinese violinist Julia-Xiaohuo Wang, and the sixth prize of NZD2,000 to Chinese violinist Xunyue Zhang.

This year’s jury was chaired by Alastair Carruthers CNZM and comprised James Ehnes, Josef Špaček, Vera Tsu Weiling, Natsuko Yoshimoto, Andrew Beer, Edward Dusinberre and Geneva Lewis.

Colombis is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she studied with Goetz Richter, and is currently studying at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin with Suyeon Kang. She was an Emerging Artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2023–24 and was accepted into the Gustav Mahler Academy in Bolzano for 2025–26.

Among her other accolades, Colombis has won first prize at competitions including the 2023 Kendall National Violin Competition, the 2021 Melbourne Bach Competition, and Musica Viva’s 2020 Strike A Chord national chamber music competition as part of the Cousin Quartet. She was also a finalist in the 2024 Tokyo Classic Violin Competition and a semi-finalist in the 2024 Max Rostal International Violin Competition.

‘This year, we celebrated twenty-five years of artistic excellence and have been extremely humbled by the respect we received from the global community,’ said Anne Rodda, the competition’s executive director. ‘For a relatively young organisation, from a small nation in the South Pacific, we are proud to stand alongside the world’s leading violin competitions and contribute to nurturing the next generation of great artists.

‘This competition of course began as the dream of Sir Michael Hill. We are delighted and incredibly grateful, this competition and every competition, to see up close, for those of us in the concert hall, and also for the hundreds of thousands who tune in to our live streams from across the world, the wide-reaching value of the Hill family’s commitment to supporting the next generation of violinists.’