ZF Music Award 2024

Peter Vogel studied piano, organ and composition, among others in the master class of Homero Francesch at the Zurich University of Music. Aside from his training in classical music, he has also devoted a great deal of focus to jazz music. His intensive concert activity has been paralleled by numerous awards, radio, TV and CD recordings. He has performed at European festivals such as the Kultursommer Nordhessen, the ars electronica Festival in Linz, the Festival van Vlaanderen in Belgium and, in Ukraine, the Lviv Chamber Music Festival Szymanowski Quartet and Friends and the SoNoRo Festival in Kiev. He has held master classes at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and performed there at the Grand National Theatre. His works have been premiered in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Constance, Beijing, Bregenz and Linz. As founder of the association Internationaler Konzertverein Bodensee e.V. and managing director of birdmusic, he has presided over the International Festival of Young Masters, the Langenarg Schlosskonzerte, the Constance Music Festival and the international competition for the ZF Music Prize since 1995. In 2020, he set up a new format with the International Music Competition for the Creative Music Award of the RC Friedrichshafen-Lindau.

Yuka Imamine was born in Kobe, Japan, and studied Western history and then piano at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich, under Prof. Klaus Schilde and Prof. Michael Schäfer. She won First Prize at the International Schubert Competition in Dortmund (1993) and the Alessandro Casagrande International Piano Competition (1996) in Terni, among others, and is a prize winner of the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich (1997). As a soloist she regularly performs with renowned orchestras and gives piano recitals in Europe and Asia. She has performed with the Munich Symphony Orchestra in the Herkulessaal, at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto and at the Stress International Festival at the Zurich Tonhalle. As a chamber musician, she has worked with Lorin Maazel, among others. Her solo CDs featuring works by Schubert, Ravel and Beethoven have been received with particular acclaim. Aged 32, Yuka Imamine was appointed professor of piano at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich. Master classes and engagements as a jury member complement her professional activities in Europe and Asia.

Roland Krüger studied under Prof. Oleg Maisenberg, Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Krystian Zimerman. His numerous prizes and awards include First Prize and the Audience Award at the Concours de Genève in 2001. He has given concert performances in Europe, Asia and the United States and performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre National de Belgique and the Sinfonieorchester Basel. He has performed in concert halls such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels and the Victoria Hall in Geneva and has been invited to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Festival di Ravello in Italy. His CD recordings include the 12 Études by Debussy, solo works by Schubert, Janáček and Bartók and chamber music by Mozart/Hummel, Reinecke and Merk. In 2007, Roland Krüger was appointed Professor of Piano at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. He has given master classes at Warsaw’s Chopin University, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Berlin University of the Arts, the Toho Gakuen School in Tokyo and the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, among others. He is frequently appointed as a juror for national and international competitions.

Xiaolu Zang was born in Qinhuangdao, northern China, in 1999 and won the ZF Music Prize in 2022. The jury at the time praised his ‘most profound musical understanding, highest precision and virtuosity, tremendous inner creative force and phenomenal richness of tone’. Soon thereafter, he was awarded Second Prize at the Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition and, in 2024, won the Maria Canals International Music Competition. He began his piano studies, aged ten, at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under Prof. Ye Lin and has been studying under Prof. Arie Vardi at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media since 2017. As a soloist, he has performed in concert halls such as the Regentenbau Bad Kissingen, the Graf-Zeppelin-Haus Friedrichshafen, the Konzerthaus Ravensburg, the Salle Cortot and the Beijing National Centre of Performing Arts. He has worked with a number of orchestras such as the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, the Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester Hannover and the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie under conductors such as Hankyeol Yoon, Frank Braley, Douglas Bostock and Valtteri Rauhalammi.