Foundation
Scholarships
2025
© Oska Borcherding
Derya Mavi Atakan
Derya Atakan (born in the Bavarian haze of the nineties)emerges as an opera performer, bringing together the three forces of opera, punk, and the sounds of the Levant. Original compositions and opera references in her work serve as an invitation to collective metamorphosis. The absurdity and comedy of human everyday life, as well as the forces of nature, are brought into focus through the soprano voice. The incompatible and opposing elements embrace. Pathos meets irritation, slapstick meets seriousness, and dream meets reality.
© Verena Bruening
Nina Gurol
As a pianist, Nina Gurol creates artistic spaces that challenge and touch her audience at the same time: with uncompromising dedication, she embarks on paths beyond the familiar and reunites in her concert programs what at first glance appears to be separate. In a variety of ways, she explores the repertoire between classical and contemporary music, complex intellect and pianistic sensitivity, combining comforting simplicity with relentless rigor, life with transience. Whether on international stages, at innovative festivals or in her academic work: as an artist, Nina Gurol does not seek out the familiar, but the still unfounded and finds her home where music stirs, resonates and raises unanswered questions - with Galina Ustvolskaya and York Höller as well as with Franz Schubert.
© Dovile Sermokas
Kateryna Kravchenko
Kateryna Kravchenko is a Ukrainian composer and singer who currently lives in Cologne. She started playing the piano at the age of four and discovered her passion for jazz singing at the age of eleven. Following her dream of becoming a jazz musician, she moved to Germany in 2018 to study jazz/rock/pop singing at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music in Dresden. She spent an exchange year in Stockholm and is currently completing a dual master's degree in jazz composition and jazz singing at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. In 2025, she will release her debut album, which was created together with Wanja Slavin.
Michaela Špačková
Michaela Špačková is an award-winning bassoonist who combines classical and contemporary music. She made her debut as a soloist with the Prague Philharmonia at the age of 17 and has performed with orchestras such as the ORF Vienna and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. She has worked with conductors such as Simon Rattle and Paavo Järvi and performed on renowned stages such as the Berlin Philharmonie. Michaela is also involved in new music, teaches at the Cologne University of Music and will release her debut album in 2025.
2024
© Felix Broede
Josefine Göhmann
As a soprano, she has performed in many renowned opera houses and festival contexts. She is active in the fields of opera, concert and song, but has not only established herself as a singer. Following her highly acclaimed debut album réBelles! (Portraits lyriques), she tackled the issue of female role models and female self-determination as the producer of her festival réBelles in 2022. At the invitation of the Neuköllner Oper, she is developing the program "TOXIC LOVE SONGS: Judith und Blaubart" for the 2023/24 season based on her own idea and concept. Together with the Concerto21 Foundation, she will work on the triology "MARBLE - PIROUTCHA - MADELEINE" - a tribute to her roots, her parents, her youth and her origins.
Shuteen Erdenebaatar
Born in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, the composer and pianist creates a unique sound with her yearning melodies, enriched with profound and expressive harmonies and rhythms. Having grown up as a classical musician, she began her bachelor's degree in classical composition at the age of 16. Immediately after her successful graduation, she came to Munich in 2018 to broaden her horizons with a double master's degree in jazz piano and jazz composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater. At the age of 23, she has successfully completed two master's programs and a master class certificate program. The Concerto21 Foundation is supporting Shuteen Erdenebaatar in building a bridge back to her home country after five years in Munich. In fall 2024, she will perform at the State Opera in Ulaanbaatar. This journey will be accompanied by a documentary.
© Stefan Löffler
Teresa Raff
The harpist does not want to be satisfied with the supposed limits of her instrument. The harp is not usually included in standard ensembles, which the musician sees as a creative challenge. Changing, exciting and challenging projects such as her podcast backstage, her work with the Ensemble Reflektor, the Elaia Quartet and cellist Anne Keckeis highlight what is currently most important to her: connecting with other people - on stage, but also between stage and audience. The Concerto21 Foundation supports her in developing a new repertoire and formats that present the harp in an unusual light.
© Stark&Shakupa
Elshan Ghasimi
She is a master of the Persian long-necked Tar lute and Persian classical music, composer, performance artist and educator. She works in encounters of tradition and modernity, West and East, music and other art forms. Language, music, physicality and dramatic expression as part of a (cultural) whole form the basis of her work. For Western musicians, non-European art music, which can only be inadequately represented by notation, remains a book with many seals. The Concerto21 Foundation supports Elshan Ghasimi in her project to break these down - especially the Radīf - and to construct a bridge from East to West.
2023
© Verena Bruening
Valerie Fritz
A cello on the back weighs seven kilos. Its tradition, however, weighs considerably more and sometimes even becomes a burden when treading new paths. My cello, my choice is an act of self-empowerment, a self-determined and personal program that provides an insight into the intimacy between a musician and her instrument. Valerie Fritz is accompanied and supported by the Concerto21 Foundation in the development of her stage program, which includes works by Sarah Nemtsov, Hildegard von Bingen and Peter Eötvös, as well as commissioned compositions by Alexander Bauer and Georg Friedrich Haas.
© Alescha Birkenholz
Goran Stevanovich
Praised by the press as a "true ambassador for the versatility of his instrument", Goran Stevanovich is considered an important accordionist of this period. Like hardly anyone else, the young musician has succeeded in establishing the accordion on concert stages outside the usual repertoire. His extraordinarily broad spectrum of pieces has allowed Goran Stevanovich to develop his very own sound aesthetic and style over the years. The Concerto21 Foundation has been accompanying him since the beginning of 2023 in the development of Bosnian folk music for his instrument - in particular the love poetry Sevdah and its overlap with German poetry.