Hina Maeda wins the International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition
The First Prize of 50,000 Euro at the prestigious violin competition in Poznań, Poland, goes this year to Hina Maeda from Japan. The Second Prize (€30,000) goes to Meruert Karmenova from Kazakhstan, and Qingzhu Weng from China won the Third Prize (€20,000). The 16th edition of the music competition ended yesterday, on Thursday.
A total of six contestants made it to the final round – here they were put to another physical and emotional test: they played two violin concertos (including one by Wieniawski) with the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Łukasz Borowicz. Augustin Dumay, President of the Jury, is happy with the way the competition went and says: “Our goal in the 16th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition was clearly not to try to highlight the ‘violin champions of the week in Poznań’ but rather to discover young musicians, sensitive, intelligent, refined, with a strong personality, whom we would like to listen on and on for years.” The jury have found these qualities in the prize-winners.
All jury results will be published
The Wieniawski Competition may be one of the oldest international music competitions, but it is one that is constantly reinventing itself: this year, the Wieniawski Society is one of the few competition organisers worldwide to make all jury results public after the end of the competition. Moreover, the organiser supports its prize-winners after they have won: the winners of the three top prizes go on a world tour. They will play a total of 60 concerts in 20 countries on five continents.
This is how the Director of the International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, Karolina Kaźmierczak, sees the Competition: “From the first stage, all participants have presented an extremely high level, performing a very demanding repertoire. I am confident about their musical future. We will certainly hear about them again and again, and see them on the world’s prime stages. It is a great honour for us to host these talented violinists at the 16th Wieniawski Competition.”
This Friday, 7 pm, the prize-winners concert will be held in Poznań (click here to watch the livestream), and in Warsaw on Sunday, 6 pm. The following Wieniawski Competition will take place in 2026.
The winners of the Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition in 2022:
1st Prize, € 50,000: Hina Maeda (20), Japan
2nd Prize, € 30,000: Meruert Karmenova (29), Kazakhstan
3rd Prize, € 20,000: Qingzhu Weng (21), China
Distinctions (€ 5,000):
Hana Chang (19), Japan/Singapore/USA
Jane Hyeonjin Cho (25), South Korea
Dayoon You (21), South Korea
About the International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition:
The Wieniawski Competition is one of the most prestigious violin competitions in the world, and it is the oldest among them. The winner of the first Wieniawski Competition in 1935 was the then 15-year-old Ginette Neveu who immediately started a world career. Her runner-up was David Oistrakh, 27 at the time. The Wieniawski Competition was a founding member of the World Federation of International Music (WFIMC) in 1957, a federation that today boasts participation of 120 international music competitions of great renown.
For more information about the 16th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, click here.
Photo credit: Leszek Zadón / Fresh Frame