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'Young Creators Prize 2024' goes to HKU graduate Noah Hassler Forest

  • 01 February 2024
The recently graduated Noah Hassler Forest (Musician 3.0) has received the Jonge Makers Prijs (‘Young Creators Prize’) 2024 from the Netherlands Violin Competition.
'Young Creators Prize 2024' goes to HKU graduate Noah Hassler Forest
Noah played with his new band Moon Garden during the finale in TivoliVredenburg. The Jonge Makers Prijs was awarded for the second time, and is meant to stimulate violin players and their ensembles to experiment with genres outside classical music. Improvisation and self-written compositions are important in the competition.

The jury was impressed by Noah and his ensemble, consisting of Joshua Herwig (cello) and Ella Zirina (guitar): The pieces and the performance were very musical. There's great storytelling and a very natural and engaging stage presence.' Noah: ‘This prize has garnered beautiful stories and images for our brand-new band, which hopefully enables us to reach out to more concerts.
Noah completed the Musician 3.0 course earlier this academic year with his performance Eye of the Storm. He already won the Dutch Jazz Competition in 2022 with his band Woodcraft which also made it to second place in the same Jonge Makers Prijs competition last year.

He has a classical background, but is enthusiastic about a broad variety of musical styles, from bluegrass and Irish music to hip hop, and mostly turned to jazz in recent years. Noah: ‘During the preliminary course in Classical Violin, I discovered that I got much more fulfilment from improvising; not playing from sheet music, but trying out new things together with others.’

For that reason, he felt really at home with Musician 3.0. ‘They give you lots of freedom to experiment and try out during the studies. In result, I learned to find myself, in the sense that I found out what I truly wanted to play and create. Along the way, I also learned a lot about composing and arranging music.

For the coming period, Noah wants to create music and tour with his bands as much as he can, to explore the world. Internationally as well, with a master’s study Jazz and Violin in Barcelona up next on the list.

You can follow news and concert announcements about Noah on his Instagram page:

Watch the video below of his finale performance in TivoliVredenburg: