Nils Mönkemeyer

Nils Mönkemeyer numbers among the outstanding violists of the new generation of concert artists. While still a student, Mr. Mönkemeyer began an intensive concert career. He has been invited to appear in numerous sonata recitals and perform as soloist at festivals such as the Niedersächsische Musiktage, the Rheingau Musikfestival and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As First Prize winner of the 2006 German Music Competition, he was also selected to perform in the competition’s Young Artists Concerts. He has appeared in concert with orchestras such as the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, the Russian National Orchestra and the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, performing with conductors such as Michael Sanderling, Reinhard Goebel, Michail Jurowski. He has appeared in concert with chamber music partners including Julia Fischer, Leonidas Kavakos, Christoph Poppen.
During the 2007/2008 concert season he will be performing on a concert tour of Europe
with the Moscow Soloists under the direction of Yuri Bashmet.
Nils Mönkemeyer began his musical studies with Prof. Hariolf Schlichtig at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, as well as with Prof. Veronika Hagen at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, obtaining his master-class diploma with highest honors in 2003. Since 2006, he has been assistant to Prof. Diemut Poppen and Professor for Orchestral Studies at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofia Madrid. He has also gained valuable impulses through regular concert appearances with Yuri Bashmet.
Nils Mönkemeyer has won prizes at numerous international competitions including First Prize and Special Prize for the best Schnittke concerto performance and the spezial Best Artist prize at the 2006 Yuri Bashmet Viola Competition, First Prize at the 2006 German Music Competition, the GWK-Förderpreis 2006, the 2006 scholarship of the Bank Monte del Paschi (awarded by the Fondazione Accademia Chigiana Siena), First Prize at the ORF’s 2005 International Viola Competition in Vienna, and the Carl-Flesch Prize 2005, and was a prize winner at the International Primrose Viola Competition in the US.
He was named a scholarship winner by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, and by Villa Musica, and was selected for the Werner Richard-Dr. Carl Dörken Foundation’s Meister von Morgen” (Masters of Tomorrow) scholarship program for aspiring soloists.m He plays a viola from the workshop of Munich violin maker Peter Erben.