BIOGRAPHY

Swantje Wittenhagen (* 1999) began playing the harp at the age of five under the tutelage of Sabine Fichner. At the age of nine she switched to Prof. Gesine Dreyer, with whom she initially took private lessons, and from 2013 on studied as a young student at the University of Music Lübeck. After graduating from high school in 2017, Swantje began her bachelor studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with Prof. Margit-Anna Süß. In October 2018 she returned to Lübeck and finished her Bachelor of Music in 2021 under the tutelage of Prof. Gesine Dreyer. Starting in the fall of 2023 she will continue her studies with a Master of Music at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussels under the tutelage of Prof. Agnès Clément.

Swantje Wittenhagen is multiple first prize winner of the national competition "Jugend musiziert", as well as a winner of "Wespe" in the categories "Ostracized Music" and "Work of a female Composer". In addition, she won a third prize in the International Harp Competition of Szeged (Hungary, 2016). In 2019 she won the Possehl music competition at the University of Music Lübeck. 2023 she reached the second round of the prestigious "ARD international Music Competition".

She has been playing as an orchestral harpist since she was eight years old and was most recently harpist of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival Orchestra and the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO). In the 2019/20 season she was part of the academy of the Lübeck Philharmonic. From 2021 to 2023 she joined the academy of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne.

Swantje Wittenhagen was a scholarship holder of the "Jugend Musiziert" foundation, as well as of several masterclasses. For several years she has received a scholarship from the “Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben”. She received the Gerd Bucerius grant from the foundation, as well multiple sponsorship grants made possible by the Bernbeck Foundation and the Dr. Werner and Hilke Appel Foundation. Swantje has been a scholarship holder of the Possehl Foundation Lübeck from 2019 to 2021. In 2021 she received a grant from the Hans and Eugenia Jütting Foundation as well.