Awards of the Fritz Gerber Foundation 2017
Harpist Alice Belugou, violist Hana Hobiger and saxophonist Rahel Kohler are the winners of this year's Fritz Gerber Foundation Award. The prize supports young, highly talented musicians in the field of contemporary classical music.
The three young musicians will each receive prize money of CHF 10,000 and a scholarship in the form of participation in the Lucerne Festival Academy in
worth a further CHF 10,000. Young artists up to the age of 28 who have Swiss citizenship or have lived in Switzerland for at least five years are eligible to take part in the award.
Alice Belugou was born in Rouen in 1991. She completed her studies in musicology and music education at the Sorbonne Paris, the Hochschule Basel and the Haute École de Musique Lausanne, where she was awarded the special prize for excellent master's concerts in 2015.
Born in 1989, the Swiss-Australian dual citizen Hana Hobiger is currently studying for a Master's degree at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. She has already performed with the Queensland Chamber Orchestra, the Salzburg Chamber Soloists and the Hofkapelle Munich.
Rahel Kohler was born in Bern in 1988. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Music Pedagogy with Christian Roellinger at the Bern University of the Arts and completed her degree with a Master of Arts in Music Performance in the class of Marcus Weiss at the Basel Music Academy.
