Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award Names 2023 Winner

29-year-old South Korean conductor Hankyeol Yoon has won the award alongside a €15,000 cash prize and concert opportunities

Presented since 2010, the biennial Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award is open to conductors aged between 21 and 35 from around the world. 

As the award’s 2023 winner, South Korean conductor Hankyeol Yoon, 29, will receive €15,000, plus opportunities to lead a concert with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, and conduct at the 2024 Salzburg Festival.

This year, 323 emerging conductors from 54 countries participated in the competition. Yoon and two other finalists, Tobias Wögerer and Vitali Alekseenok, conducted the Camerata Salzburg in a one-hour concert in three consecutive days at the 2023 Salzburg Festival in August.

Yoon won with his performance of Rossini’s Overture from Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mozart’s Ah se in ciel, benigne stelle aria, Shin Dong-hoon’s Of Rats and Men, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3.

A graduate of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, studying conducting, composing, and piano, Yoon made his conducting debut at the Tongyeong International Music Festival in 2022 under composer Unsuk Chin.

This season, Yoon made his debut with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, plus assisted conductor Sir Simon Rattle for the European tour of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

He has been recognized at the 2020 Luciano Berio International Composition Competition and the 2018 Tonali Composition Competition, and was notably the youngest winner of the Neeme Jarvi Prize at the 2019 Gstaad Menuhin Festival. 

His upcoming projects include performances at the George Enescu Festival and appearing with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Yoon is currently represented by the Askonas Holt artist management agency.

“I have been following this competition, named after one of the most important conductors in history and presented by one of the most renowned festivals in the world, for a long time,” Yoon said in a press release. “For many years it has been my goal to participate some day; the list of candidates and winners illustrates its high standard. A conductor should have many different abilities, including that to convince the musicians of his ideas by striking a good balance of technical skills and a friendly, respectful attitude.”

“Performing on a global stage like the Salzburg Festival itself was a huge honor,” Yoon later told The Korea Herald. “I focused on the performance and not so much on the prize or the outcome. So the feeling of winning hasn’t completely settled in. I am still wrapped up in the lingering emotions from the performance…I would like to continue working as a conductor — working with many orchestras and meeting with people in different cities — and together create meaningful moments through music.”

Chaired by Manfred Honeck, the award jury comprised Peter Alward, Gary Hanson, Markus Hinterhäuser, Brian McMaster, Alexander Meraviglia-Crivelli, Pamela Rosenberg, and Florian Wiegand. 

An initiative of the Salzburg Festival in cooperation with the Eliette and Herbert von Karajan Institute, the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award is named for the Austrian conductor, who led the Berlin Philharmonic from 1956 to 1989.