The Society of Recorder Players/Moeck Solo Recorder Competition is a biennial competition organised by the Society of Recorder Players with Moeck and the London International Festival of Early Music.

The aim is to encourage young players of talent, and to help them in their professional aspirations. Competitors must show that they are able to sustain a full recital programme at a professional level.

The first prize consists of a recital at LIFEM in the year following the competition, together with cash prizes, donated by Moeck and the Society of Recorder Players.

International entries are welcome from recorder players of a suitable standard who are under thirty years of age on 1st November in the year of the competition. Previous winners are not eligible to enter.

Congratulations to Jiyeon Bang, the winner of the 2023 Society of Recorder Players/Moeck Solo Recorder Competition, with Nura Natour and Mathis Wolfer being awarded joint 2nd place for a fantastic afternoon of recorder playing. 

Read more about the finalists here.

More information about Jiyeon’s Winner’s Rectial in November 2024 will be available shortly.

 

This year’s judging panel was headed up by Dutch recorder player Erik Bosgraaf, with Annabel Knight and Adrian Chandler.

 

Congratulations to Charlotte Schneider who won first prize at the 2021 competition. Charlotte performed her winner’s recital with musicians Alice Letort (lute and romantic guitar) and Irene González Roldán (harpsichord) at 12pm on Friday 11th November 2022 as part of the London International Early Music Festival at St. Michael & All Angels, Pond Road, Blackheath SE3 9JL. More information here, Charlotte’s recital will be available to watch on Marquee TV soon.

The full results were as follows:
3rd Daniel Scott & Inés Pina Pérez
 

With four very unique and interesting performances, it was a difficult decision for our judging panel and a wonderful afternoon of world-class recorder playing. Congratulations to all the performers. 

Anna Stegmann was the chair of the judging panel for the 2021 competition, alongside fellow adjudicators Jan van Hoecke and Emily White.

Anna Stegmann, Jan van Hoecke and Emily White

 

Huge congratulations to Tabea Debus who won first prize at the 2019 competition. Tabea’s recital will be broadcast from the LIFEM website on Friday 6th November 2020 at 7pm (GMT). 

All four of our finalists gave fantastic performances and it was a very difficult decision for our adjudicators. Many thanks to all of the performers for their wonderful playing.  Read more about our finalists here.

 

1st Tabea Debus 

2nd Hojin Kwon 

3rd Martin Bernstein

4th Paula Pinn

This year’s finalists were Guillaume Beaulieu, Silvia Berchtold and Mirjam-Luise Münzel. You can read all about the performers here.

After three fantastic performances from our finalists, the results were as follows:

1st prize – Silvia Berchtold; 2nd prize Guillaume Beaulieu and 3rd prize – Mirjam-Luise Münzel. 

A review of the competition, written by Miriam Nerval, was published in the Recorder Magazine and the Early Music Shop Spring Newsletter in 2018.

Silvia returned to Blackheath to perform her winner’s recital on Friday 9th November, 5pm at All Saints’ Church with Gerhard Abe-Graf on harpsichord. Her programme included music by Ucellini, Ravi Shankar, Arañés and improvisations after Hildegard von Bingen.

Silvia writes, ‘I have always struggled between a need to express something which was already within me, and the inescapable fact that a composition already has its own content for which, in order to get to know it better, you have to follow certain rules of style to learn and the “vocabulary” of its language. Sometimes these two components in my playing went into such different directions that one could easily consider the actual output as “unmusical”.

I am still struggling to find the middle way, between playing “correctly” (whatever that means) yet not devoid of any creativity and personality. Being awarded first prize in the competition was a meaningful confirmation to me to continue this way – even though judging always is a subjective decision and it could have been totally different under different circumstances.’

The final of the 2015 competition took place at 1pm on Friday 13th November in the Peacock Room, Royal Naval College as part of the 2015 Greenwich International Festival and Exhibition. The final results, decided by adjudicators Bart Spanhove, Maria Martinez Ayerza and Steven Devine, were as follows: 1st prize – Laura Schmid; 2nd prize – Lea Sobbe; 3rd prize – Sophia Schambeck; 4th prize – Silvia Berchtold.

Group photo

The finals took place on Friday 8th November at the Old Royal Naval College, Royal Greenwich as part of the 2013 Royal Greenwich International Early Music Festival and Exhibition. The winner was Anne-Suse Enβle from Germany, second was Laura Schmid and third was Claudius Kamp This photo shows the finalists with their certificates, the adjudicators – David Bellugi (2nd from right), Rachel Brown (3rd  from left) and Charles Matthews (at left) – and representatives of Moeck and the SRP.

Finalists, adjudicators and sponsors

The 2011 Society of Recorder Players/Moeck Solo Recorder Competition Finals were held on Sunday 13th November 2011 at 1.30 pm in the Peacock Room, Royal Naval College, Greenwich. The finalists were Eva Fegers, Kerstin Farh and Yi-Chang Liang. The adjudicators were Matthias Maute, Emma Murphy and Ibi Aziz.

First Place – Eva Fegers               Second Place – Yi-Chang Liang               Third Place – Kerstin Fahr

Last updated 7 February 2024