Mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter and baritone André Schuen will receive the 2026 Opus Klassik music prize as Singer of the Year, respectively. The award in the Conductor of the Year category will go to Andris Nelsons, Leipzig Gewandhaus Kapellmeister and Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Society for the Promotion of Classical Music announced in Berlin on Monday. The awards ceremony will take place on October 10 and 11 in the form of a concert and a gala.

Anna Lucia Richter

The horn player Sarah Willis, the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, and the pianist Yuncham Lim will be honored as Instrumentalists of the Year. The prizes in the Young Artists category will go to Shira Patchornik (soprano), Marcel Brunner (bass-baritone), Alexander Malofeev (piano), and Simon Tetzlaff (cello).

The prize for promoting young talent in children's and youth music goes to the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Recherche for their project "HEAR! We move". Cellist Anastasia Kobekina and dancer Sasha Waltz are honored as Innovative Concert of the Year for "Bach Cello Dance", and the Dortmund Concert Hall for the "Slow" festival is also recognized. The Innovation Prize for Sustainability is awarded to composer Gregor Mayrhofer for his "Recycling Concerto". In the special category of Music Teacher of the Year, presented in cooperation with the German Music Council, Florian Aschenbrenner is honored for his musical contributions at a secondary school in the Upper Palatinate region.

This year's award winners are "exemplary of the extraordinary diversity, creativity, and international appeal of classical music," explained Clemens Trautmann, spokesperson for the management of the Society for the Promotion of Classical Music. They carry the fascination of classical music into society and inspire audiences far beyond the boundaries of classical music.

The recipients of the lifetime achievement award and the bestseller of the year award will be announced at a later date.

The gala on October 11th at the Konzerthaus Berlin will be recorded by ZDF and broadcast that same evening starting at 10:15 pm. The Konzerthausorchester Berlin, conducted by Anna Rakitina, will perform and accompany some of the award winners.

The Opus Klassik music prize has been awarded since 2018 by record labels, publishers, and concert promoters who have joined together to form the Association for the Promotion of Classical Music. In 2025, the association became a limited liability company (GmbH).

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