Deutsche Hochschulverband Names Nils Mönkemeyer as Professor of the Year

Mönkemeyer will receive €10,000 for his commitment to using music as a tool to solve social issues

The Deutsche Hochschulverband (German University Association or DHV) has named German violist Nils Mönkemeyer as its Professor of the Year for 2025. Mönkemeyer is currently a professor of viola at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich.

Mönkemeyer received the award for his commitment to social causes. In 2016, alongside Caritas Bonn, he launched the festival Klassik für Alle, which allows those from difficult backgrounds to experience concert visits and have extraordinary encounters with music away from the setting of the concert hall.

As a performer, Mönkemeyer focuses on innovative programming, recording world premieres of previously unknown 18th-century viola works, contemporary repertoire, and his own arrangements.

Much of this programming can be found on his CD recordings with Sony Classical. His 2023 album Dance for Two, featuring recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger, contains works from over a thousand years of music history, mostly in their own arrangements for this special instrumentation.

The prize is valued at 10,000 Euros, and Mönkemeyer will be presented with the award at Berlin's Gala of German Science in March 2025.

"Mr. Mönkemeyer is at home on the big concert stages of the world, but does not want to know about only a small elite for high-quality classical music," said Professor Dr. Lambert T. Koch, President of the DHV. "Therefore, he combines the joy of and passion for music with exemplary social commitment."

"Nils Mönkemeyer build bridges and specifically brings music to those who usually have neither the opportunity nor the opportunity to participate in concerts. This included refugees and homeless people as well as the mentally ill, addicts, or simply poor people with whom Mr. Mönkemeyer seeks direct, personal encounters."

"Nils Mönkemeyer impressively demonstrates the elementary significance of music as a valuable common good and medium for social contacts and relationships. Thanks to his extraordinary commitment, he contributes in a special way to allowing the profession of university lecturers to appear in a positive light outside the academic environment."

(PC: Irene Zandel)