Award of Excellence for Leonor Dill

The Award of Excellence is a state prize awarded by the Federal Ministry for Women, Science and Research. Since 2007, it has been presented to the best doctoral graduates whose work combines scientific excellence and originality.

On 10 December 2025, the certificates were presented at a ceremony in the Aula der Wissenschaften in Vienna.

Swiss-Portuguese pianist Leonor Dill completed her inter-university doctoral studies in science and art, musicology at the Mozarteum University and the University of Salzburg from 2021 to 2025. She previously studied with Paul Coker at the Geneva University of Music, with J. Y. Song at Mannes College and with Edna Golandsky in New York. She has participated in various masterclasses with Imogen Cooper, Joaquín Achúcarro, Dominique Merlet, Heinz Medjimorec, Aleksandar Madzar and Konrad Richter. She has won several competitions, including third prize at the Festival e Academia Verão Clássico in Lisbon, second prize at the Kiefer Hablitzel Music Prize in Bern, and first prize and the Prix Collard at the Kiefer Hablitzel Music Prize in Bern. She was also awarded the Special Prize of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO).

Leonor has performed at venues including the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, the Tonhalle Zurich, Carnegie Hall and Place Neuve Grand Salle in Geneva, and has participated in various festivals such as the International Piano Festival Crescendo-Jura St. Ursanne, the Festival Akademie Verão Clássico TalentFest, the Davos Festival Young Artists in Concert, and Brahmsiades sur la colline in Neuchâtel.

Schubert's Metamorphoses. C.G. Jung's Archetypal Theory as a Foundation for Musical Analysis - A Research on the Creative Process.

The starting point for the dissertation, which was supervised by Associate Professor Barbara Dobretsberger and Professor Christian Roesler, were questions concerning the interpretation, creativity and effect of music, which required a transdisciplinary research approach. The dissertation examined the creative process in the music of Franz Schubert. C.G. Jung's theory of archetypes served as the theoretical basis for the development of an innovative method of music analysis that enables a deeper understanding of music. Jung's thesis that creative people have special access to psychic archetypal structures that influence artistic language and the creation of works of art formed the background for this research. From a musicological perspective, Schubert's spontaneous working methods and specific compositional techniques suggested a symbolic-archetypal language, which became the subject of this research, which incorporated aesthetic, political, cultural, depth psychological and knowl

The systematic research methodology and contextualised approach provided the basis for an intersubjectively comprehensible analysis. At the same time, various levels of evidence and existing theoretical approaches from musicology and analytical psychology served as the basis for analogical conclusions in order to achieve the most objective interpretation possible. Avoiding any pathologising interpretation, the findings present the connection between musical language, archetypal structures and the composer's biographical development, which makes a significant contribution to current debates in Schubert research and sheds new light on Schubert's work and creative process.edge system-oriented questions.