Swantje Wittenhagen

Biography

Swantje Wittenhagen, born in 1999, began to play the harp at the age of five under the tutelage of Sabine Fichner. After private lessons since she was nine and additional five years of pre-college at the „Musikhochschule" Lübeck under the tutelage of Prof. Gesine Dreyer, she began her Bachelor studies in Graz with Prof. Margit-Anna Süß. Swantje returned to Lübeck after one year and is currently studying in her final year of her Bachelor with Prof. Dreyer.

Swantje Wittenhagen is a first prize winner of multiple national competitions of „Jugend Musiziert" (Germany), as well as of the additional competition „Wespe" in the categories „Work of a female composer" and „Ostracized music". She won the third prize in the International Harp Competition of Szeged, Hungary (2016) and was awarded the first prize in the Possehl-Competition 2019.

Starting at the age of eight she has played as an orchestral harpist.  Her orchestral experience includes being a harpist in orchestras such as the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival Orchestra and the European Union Youth Orchestra. In the season of 2019/20 Swantje was a member of the academy of the Lübeck Philharmonic Orchestra.

She is a scholar of the „Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben" and received a generous scholarship thanks to the support of the Bernbeck-Foundation. Since 2019 Swantje is additionally a scholar of the Possehl-Foundation (Lübeck). 2021 she was awarded a scholarship by the “Jütting-Foundation”.

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 is currently studying in her final year of her Bachelor with Prof. Dreyer.

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.

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.

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 as a sponsorship grant made possible by the Bernbeck Foundation. Swantje has been a scholarship holder of the Possehl Foundation Lübeck since 2019. In 2021 she received a grant from the Hans and Eugenia Jütting Foundation.