Trio Con Brio scooped the top prize of €7,500 at the new competition, held at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna
The Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna (MUK) held the first edition of the Kitty Weinberger Music Prize competition on 20 and 21 October 2026. The competition, with a total prize pool of €15,000, aimed to recognise outstanding chamber music and innovative programme concepts.
Three ensembles were honoured following the competition. The first prize, worth €7,500, was awarded to Trio Con Brio, which comprises violinist Eva Maria Wagner, cellist Annamaria Kohlndorfer and pianist Helir Hernández.
The second prize of €5,000 went to the Ensemble Artemisia while the La Travesia Quintet was awarded the third prize of €2,500.
The jury was chaired by Hartmut Krones and comprised Catalina Butcaru, Veronika Hagen and Julia Lacherstorfer, with Livia Sellin serving as the university’s non-voting jury representative.
The competition takes its name from Katharina ‘Kitty’ Weinberger (née Bunzl), who died in 2024. Weinberger held a lifelong commitment to supporting civil society projects and advocating for minority and women’s rights.
Influenced by her own family history, Holocaust remembrance was a particularly important concern for her. In 2008, she and her husband, Peter Weinberger, initiated the Vienna Chamber Music Festival.
Participating ensembles were invited to create a comprehensive artistic concept with an independent selection of works and a self-chosen programmen title. At least one work had to be by a female composer, belong to the non-Western classical repertoire, or have been composed after 1980.
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