International ARD Music Competition
All clear for the future at the 74th ARD Music Competition
From September 1 to 19, 2025, in the categories Piano, Clarinet and Trumpet
- Sir Simon Rattle will conduct the closing Prizewinners’ Concert with the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio (BR)
- The Ernsting Arts and Culture Foundation, the new partner of the ARD Music Competition, will sponsor the Competition until and including 2028.
- Iris ter Schiphorst, Enno Poppe and Annelies Van Parys are the composers of this year’s commissioned works.
The 2025 International Music Competition of broadcaster ARD starts its 74th season on Monday,. September 1, with a large field of entrants, a jury of leading experts in their field, three commissioned works and the big final concert conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. This year, 608 instrumentalists from 51 nations registered for the competition in the categories of Piano, Clarinet and Trumpet. Out of that total, 169 can look forward to exciting days in the four competition heats held in Munich. In particular, they will have the opportunity to premiere music that has never been heard before: following the same procedure as every year, the ARD Music Competition has commissioned new compositions that this year are the work of Iris ter Schiphorst, Enno Poppe and Annelies Van Parys.
The competitors will be judged as usual by great names from the world of classical music. The three juries feature such illustrious personalities as Sharon Kam and Sabine Meyer (Clarinet), Anna Vinnitskaya, Pascal Rogé and Simone Dinnerstein (Piano) and Reinhold Friedrich and Sergei Nakariakov (Trumpet). And when the third and last Prizewinners’ Concert on September 19, 2025, finally unites all the winners with the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio on the platform of the Herkulessaal in Munich, no less a figure than the orchestra’s Principal Conductor Sir Simon Rattle will be making his first appearance on the conductor’s rostrum. He is thus setting the stage for future conductors of the ARD’s orchestras, who will be directing the closing Prizewinners’ Concert of the ARD Music Competition in years to come.
High-value prizes, a full concert calendar and essential contacts in the music biz: long-term promotion at the ARD Music Competition
Anyone who has made his or her mark at the ARD Music Competition will be generously rewarded. Along with numerous special prizes from partners and sponsors, this year’s prize money will amount to a total of 124,000 euros. This is augmented by a variety of non-monetary awards plus media productions, concert invitations, and much more. Competitors also benefit from the valuable contacts in the classical music world that they can expect to make in the course of the competition. There will be an open invitation to all prizewinners to perform at the Festival of the ARD Music Competition in May 2026, to show off their skills before audiences at live chamber concerts and radio broadcasts all over southern Germany.
“The ARD Music Competition returns this year as one of the most important competitions in the world of classical music, and its enormous importance for the nurturing of new talent can scarcely be overstated. That is why I am delighted to learn that the competition can look forward even in today’s challenging times to a great future and that young talent can continue to enjoy a positive perspective.”
– Sir Simon Rattle, Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio
The ARD Music Competition has ensured that its sustainable approach to tomorrow’s talent is secure for the future, and that is due in no small part to the contribution of its new partner.
“The Ernsting Kunst- und Kulturstiftung supports the ARD Music Competition and so enables its continuation on the same scale long after 2025. The 75th anniversary of the Competition in 2026 can thus take place again with the usual four instrumental categories. And there is another great comeback next year: 2026 marks the organ’s return to the programme after a break of 15 years.”
– Meret Forster, Artistic Director of the ARD International Music Competition
Enhanced visibility thanks to media presence and new digital offerings
As always, the ARD Music Competition will benefit from extensive reporting that gives participants a platform and brings them to the attention of a wide online audience following large parts of the competition live. One central channel this year is ARD Klassik’s new YouTube window. From the second round onwards, all competition heats and the three Prizewinners’ Concerts will be available as video streams live and in the ARD Mediathek. The BR KLASSIK radio station will be running four different broadcasts from Monday to Saturday (Allegro, Leporello, Piazza and Klassik-Stars) charting the progress of the competition and its protagonists. This will be supplemented by nationwide live transmissions of the Prizewinners’ Concerts as part of the ARD Radio Festival. The competition’s closing concert on September 19, with Sir Simon Rattle on the podium, will be screened live on BR television and on the arts and culture channels 3sat and Arte Concert. ARD’s nationwide 1st Programme (Das Erste) will be broadcasting a report on the competition on September 21.
You will find an online summary of all our transmissions here
All information on the timetable, contestants, competition results and the Prizewinners’ Concerts can be found in regularly updated form at ard-musikwettbewerb.de
The ARD International Music Competition was launched in 1952 by the broadcasting stations of the Federal Republic of Germany and has been presented ever since under the auspices of Bavarian Radio. The Competition is one of the most important projects in promotion of the arts offered by public-service broadcasting. Many of today’s world-famous artists have seen a competition prize give a boost to their careers: Jessye Norman, Sol Gabetta, Mitsuko Uchida, Thomas Quasthoff and Quatuor Ebène, to name just a few.
More information is to be found in the digital press pack downloadable here.
Press Contact:
PS Music Berlin:
Peggy Schmidt, Simone Dollmann
E-Mail: ard-wettbewerb@psmusicberlin.com
Photos: Carlos Brito Ferreira, 2nd Prize Clarinet 2019, JeungBeum Sohn, 1st Prize Piano 2017, Selina Ott, 1st Prize Trumpet 2018 © Collage BR / Daniel Delang