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In the piano quartet category, the Orion Quartet from the Folkwang Hochschule Essen with Mariko Sudo (piano), Esiona Stefani (violin), Harald Hufnagel (viola) andTobias Sykora (cello) won this year's prize. In the viola category, Wen Xiao Zheng from the Munich University of Music and Theatre came out on top among the 13 participants. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation also awarded a prize to violist Julia Neher from the Freiburg University of Music.

The Foundation awards the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize, one of the most outstanding prizes for young musicians in Germany, in co-operation with Germany's state music academies. The competition takes place annually at the Berlin University of the Arts. This year's prizewinners will present themselves to the audience in the concert hall (Hardenbergstraße 1, Berlin-Tiergarten) on Sunday (13 January 2008, 7 pm) with works by Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Brahms, Schumann and Hindemith. Tickets are no longer available.

For years, the "Scholarship of the Federal President for the Promotion of Young Musicians" has also been awarded as part of the competition. This year, the Eos Piano Quartet from the Berlin University of the Arts with Mizuka Kano (piano), Eajin Hwang (violin), Augusta Romaskeviciute (viola) and Blanca Coines Esrciche (violoncello) as well as Barbara Buntrock from the Lübeck University of Music for viola . One of this year's two winners of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Competition, the Orion Quartet, will also receive the "Chamber Music Prize of the Friends of Young Musicians".

The prizewinners:

Mariko Sudo (piano), born in 1984, began her musical education at the age of five. In 2003, she began her studies at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen/Duisburg with Arnulf von Arnim. She is coached in chamber music by Andreas Reiner and Dirk Mommertz. Since 2002, Mariko Sudo has been a soloist several times in the "Young Neuss Artists Concerts" with the Neuss Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Joachim Neugart. Further engagements with orchestras such as the Symphoniker des Oberbergischen Kreises under Gus Anton and the Cervo Summer Academy Orchestra under Eckhard Fischer followed. In 2005 and 2007 she was a guest at the Ruhr Piano Festival during the "Extraschicht" and was invited to take part in a masterclass with Robert Levin in the summer of 2006.

Esiona Stefani (violin) was born in Albania in 1981 and began her musical education in 1988 at the professional music school "Servete Maci". As early as 1992, she successfully took part in music festivals and tours in Albania and abroad and was a member of the string orchestra "The Young Virtuosos of Tirana" and "Jeunesses Musicales de Suisse" from 1997 to 1999. Esiona Stefani began her studies in Essen with Vesselin Paraschkevov in 2000 and is coached in chamber music by Andreas Reiner. From 2000 to 2005, she performed internationally with the trio "ARB" and as a soloist, and in 2006 she was offered a traineeship as first violin with the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra.

Harald Hufnagel (viola), born in 1982, began his musical career as a violinist before switching to the viola in 1998. In addition to his commitment to early music, including as a member of the Hofkapelle Stuttgart and attending masterclasses with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, chamber music is one of his passions. Concert tours have taken him to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Japan and many European countries. He currently has an engagement with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra. He studies with Emile Cantor at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen.

Tobias Sykora (violoncello) was born in 1980 in Müllheim/Baden. He received his first cello lessons at the age of eight. In 2001, he began his studies at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen in the class of Alexander Hülshoff. After graduating in July 2006, he continued his studies there with a concert exam. In 2007 he moved to the class of Young-Chang Cho. He places particular emphasis on chamber music. Here he is artistically supervised by Andreas Reiner and Dirk Mommertz. He also specialises in contemporary music. Tobias Sykora has been a member of the "Ensemble RuhrKlang" since 2006. Following an engagement with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra, he currently plays in the orchestra of the Hessian State Theatre in Wiesbaden.

Wen Xiao Zheng, born in China in 1981, began playing the violin at the age of four and was accepted into the Shanghai Conservatory's early talent programme at the age of ten. At the age of fourteen, he switched to the viola and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with honours. He studied with Gérard Caussé at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia Madrid and with Diemut Poppen at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. He is currently a student in the masterclass of Hariolf Schlichtig at the Munich University of Music. He has attended masterclasses with Yuri Bashmet and Paul Newbauer. Wen Xiao Zheng won first prize at the National China Viola Competition, first prize at the "ciudad de Xativa" competition (Spain), the special prize of the president of the jury (Yuri Bashmet) at the Lionel Tertis Viola Competition, first prize at the Llanes Viola Competition and a special prize for "Best Chamber Musician" at the Yuri Bahmet Viola Competition in Moscow. Wen Xiao Zheng can already look back on an extensive concert career.

Julia Neher was born in 1983 in Wangen im Allgäu, where she took piano, violin and viola lessons at the youth music school in 1989. Since autumn 2002, she has been studying viola with Professor Wolfram Christ at the State University of Music in Freiburg im Breisgau. Julia Neher gained orchestral and chamber music experience at an early age and has worked with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Christoph Eschenbach, Kurt Masur, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sir Neville Marriner and Hans Zender. She has been a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra (Vienna) since 2004 and a Villa Musica scholarship holder since 2005. In 2006, she was awarded the annual scholarship of the Märkischer Kreis for music. In the first half of 2006, Julia Neher was under contract as a permanent substitute with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. Following an audition, she was offered a temporary contract with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from March 2007.

Mizuka Kano (piano) was born in Tokyo in 1978 and has been playing the piano since the age of four. She studied at the Toho Gakuen College of Music in Tokyo with Mikako Abe and Mikhail Voskresensky and has already won numerous prizes: Second Prize at the International Rachmaninoff Piano Competition (2002), First Prize at the 56th International Viotti Music Competition (2005), Steinway Förderpreis Berlin (2006), Third Prize at the Mercantour International Competition in Valberg/France (2007). Piano recitals and chamber music evenings have taken her on concert tours to Japan, Great Britain, the USA, Austria and Italy. Since October 2003, Mizuka Kano has continued her studies at the Berlin University of the Arts with Klaus Hellwig and is currently studying for her concert exam.

Eajin Hwang (violin) was born in South Korea in 1981. She began playing in an orchestra at the age of nine. She received significant impulses in her artistic training from her teachers Sunghea Jun at the Seoul National University (1999 to 2003), Edward Zienkowski at the University of Performing Arts Vienna (2003 - 2006) and since 2006 from Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the Berlin University of the Arts. She has given concerts as a string quartet, chamber orchestra, orchestra and soloist in Vienna, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Nagoya, Miyazaki and Seoul.

Born in Lithuania, 21-year-old Augusta Romaskeviciute (viola) began music lessons at the age of six at the National Art School in Vilnius. Even before starting her studies, she gave concerts in Lithuania and Europe. In 2005, she began her studies with Petras Radzevicius at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and took part in the "MusiCamp" in San Diego (USA) in the same year. In 2006 she was a scholarship holder at the AIMS (Spain), a member of the youth orchestra "Orkester Norden" and the "Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra". She has been an ERASMUS exchange student at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2007 and is taught by Hartmut Rohde.

Blanca Coines Esrciche (cello) was born in Seville in 1986 and began cello lessons there in 1992 with Nonna Natsvlishvili and Dirk Vanhuye. From 1999 to 2007, she studied at the Reina Sofia Music Academy in Madrid with Frans Helmerson and Natalia Shakhovskaya. She is currently continuing her studies at the Berlin University of the Arts. She has been winning national and international prizes and taking part in festivals and masterclasses since the age of ten. In 2006 she became a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. She has received chamber music lessons from Walter Levin, H. Beyerle, Bruno Canino, Veronika Hagen, Diemut Poppen, Peter Frankl and Ralph Gotony, among others.

Barbara Buntrock, born in Wuppertal in 1982, received her first violin lessons at the age of five. From 1991 she was a pupil of Maria Szabados-Racz at the Bergische Musikschule Wuppertal before taking her first viola lessons with Werner Dickel at the Musikhochschule Wuppertal in 2001. Since 2002 she has been studying with Barbara Westphal at the Lübeck University of Music. From September 2005 to May 2006 she was a student at the Juilliard School in New York with Heidi Castleman. Barbara Buntrock won first prize at the Markneukirchen International Music Competition in 2007, the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 2004 and the Concours de Genève in 2005 and five first prizes at the German national competition "Jugend musiziert". In 2006, Barbara Buntrock was awarded a DMW scholarship and the Zonta Music Prize at the German Music Competition in Bonn. She has attended masterclasses with Walter Levin, Gabor Takàcs-Nagy, Lukas Hagen and Eberhard Feltz. Barbara Buntrock is a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. She plays a viola by Antonio Mariani, Pesaro, from the middle of the 17th century.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize - Germany's oldest music prize:

The prize was established by the Prussian state in 1878: It was the ideal counter-gift for the donation of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's music manuscripts and archive to the Royal Library (now the Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage) by the composer's heirs. From then on, Prussia financed scholarships that benefited highly talented young people and promoted their artistic careers. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has been awarding this prize since 1963.

In addition to his own compositions, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy has gone down in the history of music in a way that makes him particularly suitable as the namesake of the prize: he always saw the quality of the performers as the decisive factor. In 1843, he also founded the first music conservatory in Germany in Leipzig.

Students from the 23 state music academies in Germany are invited to take part in the competition. Specialist jurors from Germany's music academies form the jury. Well-known musicians are among the prize winners: Engelbert Humperdinck, Wilhelm Backhaus, Wilhelm Kempff, Kurt Weill from the older generation, the pianist Nina Tichmann, the singer Matthias Hölle and the cellist Georg Faust as prize winners from the seventies are to be mentioned here.

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