Augustin Hadelich has won the inaugural Warner Music Prize. The violinist will receive a $100,000 cash prize and a recording contract with Warner Classics. The winner of the Warner prize was selected from a pool of 16 artists, all significant soloists of the Carnegie Hall 2014-2015 season.
This is not the first competition in which the 31-year-old German has triumphed. In 2006, he came first in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, gaining his first Stradivarius in the process. He now plays another Stradivarius, the 1723 'Ex-Kiesewetter' violin, named after the German violinist Christoph Gottfried Kiesewetter who died in 1827.
We interviewed Augustin Hadelich before his UK debut in 2010. You can read the interview here.