Germany’s Beethoven Ring Award Announces 2022 Winner

Austrian cellist Julia Hagen is the 18th artist to win the prize, joining past winners including Gustav Dudamel and Julia Fischer

Since 2004, the Bürger Für Beethoven or “Citizens for Beethoven” association has awarded the Beethoven Ring annually to emerging musicians. The prize title also includes a handcrafted ring, which since 2017, has been made from 18-karat rose gold and sterling silver by a German jeweler.

Based in Salzburg, cellist Julia Hagen is this year’s Beethoven Ring recipient after performing at the Beethovenfest in Bonn, Germany. The 27-year-old was selected out of five other soloists by a voting process eligible to 1,700 Bürger Für Beethoven association members.

She won with her rendition of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto Op. 56, which she performed with pianist and Beethoven Ring laureate Kit Armstrong, violinist Renaud Capuçon, and the Aurora Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon. 

Second, third, and following places of the event went to pianists Dmytro Choni and Amadeus Wiesensee, violinist Jonian Illias Kadesha, and pianist Nicolas Namoradze, respectively. 

Hagen will be presented with the Beethoven Ring in the Summer of 2023 at a ceremony and benefit concert at Bonn’s Beethovenhaus. The proceeds from the performance will go toward musical and cultural youth education.

A graduate of the Salzburg Mozarteum, Hagen is also a Kronberg Academy scholarship holder since 2019. Her mentors include Enrico Bronzi, Reinhard Latzko, Heinrich Schiff, Jens Peter Maintz, and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. 

Growing up in a family of musicians, she made her orchestral debut at age 14 with the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra, and since then, has performed throughout Europe and Japan. Her regular chamber music partners include Igor Levit and Renaud Capuçon. She plays on a 1684 Francesco Ruggieri cello made in Cremona.

“Hagen is one of the most promising instrumentalists of her generation. She is just as at home in chamber music as she is in working with large orchestras. Her playing gives the cello its own personality and that fascinates the listeners,” commented Bürger Für Beethoven Chairman Stephan Eisel. 

“To have been selected as the recipient of the Beethoven Ring 2022 is a great honor for me, which fills me with joy and pride,” Hagen said. “It is not only my common love for the city of Bonn that connects me Ludwig van Beethoven and his music, but also the fact that part of my family is from this city, so I can't wait to play my cello at the Beethovenhaus Bonn and this wonderful prize that so many colleagues I value have received to accept.”

Past winners of the Beethoven Ring include Gustavo Dudamel, Julia Fischer, Lisa Batiashvili, Lauma Skride, Nicolas Altstaedt, and Igor Levit.