Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin Announces New Viola Professor

Nils Mönkemeyer will join the school as its new viola professor in 2025

The Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin has welcomed the internationally acclaimed violist Nils Mönkemeyer to its string faculty as of the 2025 summer semester. 

He will succeed Tabea Zimmermann, who moved to Frankfurt in 2023 to teach at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. 

Mönkemeyer has served as a professor at the Munich University of Music and Theatre since 2011. He will officially begin teaching his viola class at HFM Hanns Eisler in April 2025. 

His strong reputation as a university lecturer was recently recognized by the German University Association (DHV), which awarded him the University Teacher of the Year prize for 2025 — making him the first musician and artist to receive the award. 

As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Tokyo Symphony and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and with conductors including Reinhard Goebel, Elias Grandy, Pietari Inkinen, Vladimir Jurowski, Joana Mallwitz, Andrew Manze, Kent Nagano, Markus Stenz, Simone Young, and more. 

Mönkemeyer is also a member of the acclaimed Julia Fischer Quartet and has been a regular guest at Beethovenfest Bonn, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and the Boswiler Herbst. 

His other projects include launching the Classical Music for All chamber music festival in 2016 alongside the Caritas Bonn charity to build bridges with music and increase its accessibility to the disadvantaged. 

Formerly a junior student on violin at the Bremen University of the Arts, Mönkemeyer later switched to the viola and studied at the Hanover University of Music, the Munich University of Music and Theatre, and the Mozarteum with teachers including Christian Pohl, Hariolf Schlichtig, and Veronika Hagen. 

Among his various scholarships and awards included those from the German National Academic Foundation and many international competitions. Mönkemeyer plays a viola crafted by Philipp Augustin.

“Hello Berlin … I have been appointed as viola professor at the legendary Hanns Eisler Berlin,” Mönkemeyer posted on Facebook. “I am immensely looking forward to this new chapter of my life after teaching in Munich for 14 years. Starting in the next summer semester, I will be taking over for the one and only Tabea Zimmermann who now teaches in Frankfurt.”

“With Prof. Mönkemeyer, the school is gaining one of the world's most successful artists in his field for instrumental training,” reads a press release from HfM Hanns Eisler. “We are delighted to welcome him as a new colleague to our teaching staff.”