Augsburg's Leopold Mozart Violin Competition is Discontinued

After ten festivals, the Leopold Mozart Violin Competition has announced that the 2019 competition was its last

The first competition was held in 1987 and celebrated over three decades of music-making.

The decision to end the festival was reached by the Leopold Mozart Kuratorium, citing that financial conditions would not enable future activities from taking place. The organization also disclosed that the only reason the 2019 festival was able to be held was due to Leopold Mozart’s 300^th birthday.

Chairman Christoph Hammer told The Violin Channel that “the musical world of 2021 has changed and, in some ways, playing competitions may no longer be the main focus of young musicians.”

"This means that music competitions have to change their profile to comply with the needs of the new generations. The Leopold-Mozart-Kuratorium has also decided to change its profile and is now planning to strengthen its support for the Leopold-Mozart-Zentrum, the conservatoire of Augsburg. They are aiming to support the local musical education facilities through giving financial support for master classes, concerts, and other course-related activities.

"The Leopold-Mozart-Kuratorium would like to express their heartfelt thanks to everybody who was involved in the ten editions of the Augsburg violin competition. Especially to Linus Roth, who served as artistic director of the 10th competition in 2019 but also to all other artistic directors, jury members, artists, and participants since 1987.

"This competition would not have been possible without the strong financial and personal support of all members of the Leopold Mozart Kuratorium, the public sponsors (very special thanks to the City of Augsburg), all private sponsors and friends, and all helping hands over the last more than 30 years."

Previous winners of the competition include Benjamin Schmid, Lena Neudauer, and Joshua Brown.