Award winner 2026 Fabian Johannes Egger

The 19-year-old flutist was named the winner at yesterday's jury meeting with his concept “Life is not enough – the search for the unattainable.” This is the twelfth edition of the Concept Prize for Classical Music. Since 2015 the prize has been awarded to young classical musicians for their musical talent and—even more importantly for the jury—for their creative and visionary concepts. The jury meeting marked the start of an eventful year with concerts at the Elbphilharmonie, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, at its own festival in Lou Calen in France, in Berlin, and at Schloss Düneck.  

The distinguished jury unanimously selected Fabian Johannes Egger as the winner. His outstanding musical virtuosity, combined with his concept entitled “Life is not enough – the search for the unattainable,” convinced the jury across the board. With works such as Albert Roussel's Joueurs de flûte, Op. 27 for flute and piano, Charles DeLaney's Hymn of Pan for solo flute, André Jolivet's Chant de Linos for flute and piano, the young talent not only fully exploited the brilliance and suppleness of French-style flute playing, he also consistently referred to the archaic significance of flute playing in myth and literature. The title “Life is not enough – the search for the unattainable” refers to Hans Christian Andersen's story The Butterfly. He finally won over the jury completely with a virtuoso composition of his own bearing the same title, which impressively explored the entire expressive spectrum of flute playing in all its facets.

Now in its twelfth year, the Fanny Mendelssohn Förderpreis concept award recognizes talented musicians up to the age of 25 for their musical visions and enables them to record a debut album entirely according to their own ideas. Fabian Johannes Egger will record his homage to the flute, based on the winning concept, in the spring with the Hamburg label ES-DUR, with release planned for the summer.

Chaired by Martin Hoffmeister (Gewandhausradio), the renowned jury of the Fanny Mendelssohn Förderpreis also includes Ursula Haselböck (artistic director of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival), Alexander Krichel (pianist), Sarah Kesting (artistic director of Schloss Elmau), Alexander Ponet (manager of Daniel Hope), and Tamás Pálvalfi (trumpeter and first prize winner in 2015). Applications for the prize are only possible after prior nomination by a musician mentor. In Fabian Johannes Egger's case, this came via the German Music Foundation and his professor Andrea Lieberknecht.

Fabian Johannes Egger on his win: "With my concept I want to address the pursuit of perfection and at the same time the inevitability of imperfection (...) The origin of the longing for the unattainable is illustrated by the flute as a link between the earthly and the divine. The result is a program that takes the listener on a special musical journey, bringing together works that are unusual but nevertheless accessible and timelessly expressive. I am incredibly happy and grateful that the jury recognized this and chose my concept."

Jury chairman Martin Hoffmeister was impressed: “Fabian Johannes Egger met the requirements of the Fanny Mendelssohn Sponsorship Award in an exemplary and ideal manner: far from eccentric gestures and with an impressive stage presence, the 19-year-old flutist demonstrated eminent technical expertise, consistent exegesis, and a dialectically condensed concept, and also revealed himself to be an advanced and stylistically confident composer.”