At the international “Munich Piano Competition 2026”, which was held at Nymphenburg Palace following a rigorous preliminary selection process, Eren Parmakerli, a student in Prof. Sontraud Speidel’s class, was awarded first prize in Category D (born in 2010–2011, required performance duration 8–14 minutes).
Eren Parmakerli, born in Heidelberg in 2011, began taking piano lessons with Erika Tieg at the age of four. Since 2020, he has been a pupil of Prof. Sontraud Speidel, and since 2022 he has been a junior student in her piano class at the HfM Karlsruhe. He made his debut as a soloist at the age of 12 with the Badische Staatskapelle under the baton of Ulrich Wagner, and has performed with the Karlsruhe Chamber Orchestra under Matthias Böhringer and the Waldstadt Chamber Orchestra under Norbert Krupp. Following a successful audition, he appeared as a soloist with the Málaga Symphony Orchestra, conducted by José Luis López Antón, at the closing concert of the International Málaga Piano Festival in July 2024. He is a multiple prize-winner at national and international competitions. At the Clara Schumann Competition in Leipzig (2022), he was awarded the competition’s sole first prize. He was awarded first prizes in his age groups at, among others, the solo competition of the International Piano Festival in Málaga (2024), the Prof. Dichler Competition of the Vienna Music Seminar (2024), the euplay competition (online) and the Claude Debussy Competition Paris 2025 (online). In September 2025, as the youngest participant, he won joint first prize at the International Piano Concerto Competition in Ponte Ulm/euplayy. He is the recipient of the 2021 Mozart Prize from the Mozart Society of Stuttgart. The Piano-Podium Karlsruhe honoured him with the 2024 Angela Rosewich Memorial Prize.