Young Estonian conductor Henri Christofer Aavik wins two major German awards
Estonian conductor Henri Christofer Aavik scored big at the 2025 German Conducting Award competition, winning both the top and audience prizes.
The win comes with a €15,000 cash prize, with another €3,000 awarded for Aavik's Kurt Masur Audience Award.
Second and third place went to Chile's Luis Toro Araya and Germany's Friedrich Praetorius, who received €10,000 and €5,000, respectively.
The awards gala took place Sunday at the Cologne Philharmonie, concluding a weeklong competition. Twelve young finalists were chosen from 234 applicants to work with the Gürzenich Orchestra, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and singers from Cologne Opera.
Aavik's first-place prize also includes future conducting engagements with several major orchestras and institutions, including the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Cologne Opera, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresdner Philharmonie, Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and Munich Symphony Orchestra.
Organized by the German Music Council (DMR), the German Conducting Award is held in cooperation with the Cologne Philharmonie, Cologne Opera, the Gürzenich Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. This year's edition — the fifth — ran from October 14–20.
On podiums across Europe
Henri Christofer Aavik has conducted more than 70 ensembles to date. From 2017–2019, he served as artistic director of the TU Ilmenau Academic Orchestra in Germany.
In the 2022–2023 season, he made his debut with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO), the Israel Camerata Jerusalem and the Bergische Symphoniker.
Since the 2020–2021 season, Aavik has appeared as a guest conductor with the Estonian National Opera — for productions including Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" and Verdi's "La traviata" — and been a frequent guest with the Pärnu City Orchestra.
In 2021, he founded an orchestra made up of young Estonian musicians studying across Europe.
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Editor: Kaspar Viilup, Aili Vahtla
