Germany’s Würth Prize Announces 2023 Winner

The Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie has won the 33rd edition of the prize as well as a €25,000 cash award

Endowed with €25,000 since 2022, the renowned Würth Prize of Jeunesses Musicales Germany (JMD) has been awarded annually since 1991 to outstanding artistic individuals, ensembles, and projects.

As this year’s winner, the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie or German String Philharmonic Orchestra (DSP), will be presented the prize at the award ceremony on September 14, 2023, at the Carmen Würth Forum in Künzelsau, Germany.

A select orchestra for musicians aged between 11 and 20, the DSP was awarded for its “uniquely differentiated string sound and a culture of communal devotion to music,” according to the jury in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 

Previous winners of the prize include the Notos Quartet, Gustavo Dudamel, Jörg Widmann, Christian Tetzlaff, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and Sol Gabetta, among others. 

This year marks the DSP’s 50th anniversary since its founding in 1973 in East Germany as a radio music school orchestra. As of 1991, the organization has been supported by the Association of German Music Schools.

DSP members from across all 16 federal states of Germany gather six to seven times a year to rehearse and then go on a concert tour. Recent highlights included participating in the award-winning film Tár, starring Cate Blanchett.

The orchestra has also appeared at the Vienna Musikverein, Cologne Philharmonie, Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, and Berlin’s Young Euro Classic.

Conducted by the current chief conductor Wolfgang Hentrich since 2013, the DSP’s past conductors have included Herbert Kegel, Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, Jörg-Peter Weigle, Hanns-Martin Schneidt, and Michael Sanderling. 

With collaborators including Marek Janowski, Vladimir Jurowski, Julia Fischer, Nils Mönkemeyer, and the Jussen brothers, the DSP has also released 14 concert and studio recordings with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Many DSP alumni now play in orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.