The Animato Quartet won €12,000 plus a future engagment at the 2026 Heidelberg Spring String Quartet Festival

Irene Steels-Wilsing mit dem Gewinnerquartett Animato Quartet_c Nico Rademacher

Members of the Animato Quartet with Irene Steels-Wilsing © studio visuell

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The Animato Quartet from the Netherlands won first prize of €12,000 at the Irene Steels-Wilsing Foundation competition, which was held on 22 January 2025 as part of the Heidelberg Spring String Quartet Festival.

A total of eight ensembles competed in front of an audience at the Heidelberg University of Education, selected from 27 applications.

The first prize, awarded to the Animato Quartet as an annual scholarship, is also linked to a performance engagement at the Heidelberg Spring Festival in 2026.

Second prize of €6,000 went to the Viatores Quartet, while third prize of €4,000 was awarded to the Nerida Quartet. The Elaia Quartet won the audience prize of €1,000, donated by the Heidelberg Music Foundation.

The jury comprised presenter Jörg Lengersdorf, Annette Walther from the Signum Quartet, Caspar Vinzens from the Aris Quartet, solo cellist of the WDR Symphony Orchestra and former member of the Gemeaux Quartet Ulrich Witteler and violist and artistic advisor for the String Quartet Festival Irene Schwalb.

The Animato Quartet, comprising violinists Inga Våga Gaustad and Tim Brackman, violist Elisa Karen Tavenier and cellist Pieter de Koe, received the Kersjes Prize of the Netherlands for chamber music in 2023 and is a prizewinner of the chamber music competitions in Weimar (Joseph Joachim) and Trondheim.

In addition to concerts in the Netherlands, the quartet has performed in Paris, Luxembourg and the Gewandhaus Leipzig. As artists in residence at the Dutch String Quartet Academy, they were coached by Eberhard Feltz, Hatto Beyerle and Marc Danel.

Held biennially, the Irene Steels-Wilsing Foundation Competition was launched in 2012 in Berlin. The foundation was established in 2011 with the aim to promote young string quartets from Europe. Since 2018, the competition has been held as a prelude to the Heidelberg Spring String Quartet Festival.

Previous winners include the Armida Quartet, Schumann Quartet, Aris Quartet and the Goldmund Quartet. The next competition will take place in 2027.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Heidelberg Spring String Quartet Festival starts today and runs until Sunday 26 January.

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