Arpi Sinanyan, a 23-year-old Armenian soprano, and Jiazhou Wang, a 22-year-old Chinese baritone, won the first prizes at the Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition, performing at Friday evening's final at the Stadthalle Gütersloh on 9 October 2026. Each receives €15,000. Eight finalists performed with the Duisburg Philharmonic under conductor Vitali Alekseenok for a nine-member jury chaired by Alexander Neef, director of the Paris Opera. The final was streamed live on OperaVision.

According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung, at 22 Wang is the youngest winner in the competition's history — remarkable for a prize founded in 1987 that has helped launch stars like Franco Fagioli, Marina Rebeka, Nicole Car, Nadine Sierra and Elsa Dreisig. Moto Perpetuo reports that Wang already won the 2025 Viotti International Music Competition in Vercelli and joins the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino's emerging artists programme for 2026/27, while Sinanyan is a soloist in the Young Opera Program of Armenia's National Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Moto Perpetuo reports Sinanyan's final programme included Lisa's aria from Tchaikovsky's 'The Queen of Spades' and 'L'altra notte in fondo al mare' from Boito's 'Mefistofele', while Wang sang 'Largo al factotum' from Rossini's 'Il barbiere di Siviglia' and the Count's aria from Mozart's 'Le nozze di Figaro'. The full prize list, per the Bertelsmann Stiftung: second prizes of €10,000 to Kazakh soprano Aigerim Altynbek and Georgian bass-baritone Irakli Pkhaladze; third prizes of €5,000 to Chinese soprano Liere Wu and Mexican tenor Rafael Rojas.

The development is a performance, and the video matters: per the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the final concert was streamed live on the international opera platform OperaVision, and a recording of the final will remain available afterward. Individual arias from the final and semifinal will also be posted on the Liz Mohn Foundation's YouTube channel (@lizmohnstiftung). For singing enthusiasts, that means you can judge for yourself whether the voices, stage presence and individuality that Jury Chairman Alexander Neef says won over the panel come through on screen — he praised the finalists as singers with 'distinctive artistic identities and something to say.'

The Bertelsmann Stiftung reports 1,126 singers from 69 countries applied; 41 reached the Gütersloh round, 16 the semifinal and eight the final. Special awards extended the field's rewards: Rojas took the €1,000 Audience Award and the Patagonia Voice Award, Wang the €1,000 Junior Jury Prize, and Swedish mezzo-soprano Klara Solén the €5,000 Brian Dickie Young Talent Award. President Liz Mohn said the competition is an important step toward national or international careers, with support continuing through a redesigned 'Creating Careers' program — a 15-month program combining concerts, workshops, mentoring and networking. Moto Perpetuo notes the prizewinners' concert is scheduled for 1 June 2027 in Berlin.