The 2026 Fanny Mendelssohn Composition Prize has been awarded to Johannes Wiedenhofer. The 21-year-old from Munich prevailed over 25 other applicants, as announced by the Fanny Mendelssohn Society on Tuesday. Wiedenhofer will receive prize money of 10,000 euros and a commission to compose a chamber music work for flute and bassoon.

Johannes Wiedenhofer

Wiedenhofer's commissioned work will premiere at the award ceremony on August 7th in Halberstadt as part of the KlangART Vision festival. The performers are this year's winner of the Fanny Mendelssohn Advancement Award, flautist Fabian Johannes Egger, and bassoonist Cosima Maria Heilmaier.

"Wiedenhofer's solitary soundscapes do not leave the audience perplexed because they rely on logical, balanced, and subtly interwoven progressions that—dialectically conceived—allow flat and dense, consistent and experimental, contemplative and ecstatic elements to correspond," explained jury chairman Martin Hoffmeister, editor-in-chief of Leipzig Gewandhaus Radio, adding: "On further levels, they amalgamate suggestive tableaux with distinctive melodic lines, complex rhythms, coloristic variation, and traditional idioms."

The Fanny Mendelssohn Support Association was founded in 2013 by Heide Schwarzweller from Hamburg to support young artists launching their solo careers. Since 2014, the association has awarded an annual grant. In 2024, a composition prize was added, for which the association collaborates with the KlangART Vision Festival in Saxony-Anhalt.

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