German violinist Miha Zhu receives €20,000
The 2026 edition of the Leipzig Bach Competition – formerly known as the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition Leipzig – was dedicated to the violin and concluded on 21 March with an award ceremony at the Lutherkirche in Leipzig, Germany.
The first prize was awarded to German violinist Miha Zhu, 29, who received €20,000 as well as the €2,000 audience prize, the Bärenreiter Urtext Prize in the form of a €500 voucher, and a tailor-made stage outfit worth €2,500.
The €10,000 second prize was won by French violinist Céleste Lingelschmitt, 23, along with a reproduction Baroque violin on loan for four years from the Christa Bach Marschall Foundation, and the €5,000 third prize went to Dutch violinist Cosima Soulez-Lavière, 29.
All three winners receive concert engagements at the 2026 Leipzig Bachfest and the Im Zeichen Bach concert series in Bruneck, Italy.
The other winners of special prizes were German violinist Moë Dierstein, 20, who received a €1,000 grant to partake in a masterclass, and Greek violinist Phoebe Rousochatzaki, 26, who received the four-year loan of a modern violin from the Christa Bach Marschall Foundation.
Zhu currently studies with Natalia Prishpenko at the Carl Maria von Weber School of Music Dresden. She is an alumna of the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin and the Berlin University of the Arts, where she studied with teachers including Viviane Hagner, Marianne Boettcher, Laticia Honda-Rosenberg and Eva-Christina Schönweiss. Zhu is also a member of the Staatskapelle Halle and the associated Halle Handel Festival Orchestra.
This year’s jury was led by Reinhard Goebel and comprised Rachel Barton Pine, Eleonore Büning, Friedemann Eichhorn, Rachel Podger, Johannes Pramsohler and Kathrin Rabus.
‘The repertoire chosen by jury president Reinhard Goebel for the first two rounds of the competition was extremely challenging,’ said artistic director Michael Maul. ‘In the end the winners were three violinists who could scarcely have been more different.
‘The deciding challenge awaited them in the final: Bach’s Chaconne, the Mount Everest of violin music, and a Bach violin concerto. Congratulations to all three 2026 Bach Prize winners.’
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