With strong partners, a top-class jury and attractive prizes, the chamber music competition has become an essential part of the Festival since 2017. Early music ensembles (2-7 members) whose repertoire is focused on Baroque music are eligible to apply. The age limit for individual members is 35, and the average age of the ensemble may not exceed 32. The competition will take place in Göttingen on May 18 and 19, 2026 (Prizewinners’ Concerts on May 20 and 21, 2026).
Jochen Schäfsmeier
Head of the Jury, Managing Director at Göttingen Int. Handel Festival
Theresa De Luca
Concert Planner at the Cologne Philharmonie
Christiane Irrgang
Music Editor NDR Kultur
Alexander Weimann
Artistic Director Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Vancouver
Dr. Marie Luise Maintz
Bärenreiter publishing house
Emilio Percan
Violin, Baroque violin
Michael Schäfer
Göttinger Tageblatt newspaper
Prize of the Göttinger Händel-Gesellschaft e. V., endowed with € 5,000 as well as a performance at the Prizewinners' Concert on May 21, 2026 as part of the Int. Händel-Festspiele Göttingen 2026 (including a radio broadcast)
Special prize “Music and Space”, endowed with € 2,000 as well as a performance at the Prizewinners' Concert “Music and Space” on May 20, 2026 as part of the Göttingen International Handel Festival 2026, and a performance at the Cologne Philhamornie on September 13, 2026
Bärenreiter Urtext Prize
Audience Award and a performance at a lunch concert as part of the Göttingen International Handel Festival 2026
Special prize: Guest performance at Early Music Vancouver in 2027
Barque Ensemble is an early music ensemble founded in 2019 in Łódź, united by a shared passion for historically informed performance and long-standing friendship.
The young duo Lucescuro focuses particularly on music from the 17th and 18th century. Its goal is to expand the repertoire of this instrumentation by performing less-known works and its original arrangements of various compositions.
All four ensemble members study at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, where they have been enjoying their musical companionship in various smaller and larger ensembles for quite some time.
With a deep passion for the baroque repertoire and an openness to new worlds of sound, we, the Furore Ensemble, create concerts that are emotionally moving and thought-provoking at the same time.
Formed in 2024, Les Arcanes Baroques unites four musicians through a shared passion for early music and historically informed performance practice.
The ensemble unites four young musicians whose paths converge across Europe’s leading centres of historical performance.
The Red Shoes Project was founded in 2022 in Bremen by soprano Franziska Poensgen and baroque cellist Azzurra Raneri. The name refers to Zapatos Rojos, an art project initiated in 2009 by the Mexican artist Elina Chauvet to protest gender-based violence and femicide.
The Simileo Alpin Collective is a professional ensemble based in Munich. Led by Andreas Kammenos (recorders) and Sumin Ahne (traverso), together with Katharina Lampersperger (viola da gamba) and Marie Dumas (harpsichord), it was founded in 2025.
