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 academic excellence and originality.

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

Swiss-Portuguese pianist Leonor Dill studied in the W&K (academia and art) inter-university doctoral studies programme in 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 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 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 doctoral dissertation, which was supervised by Professor Barbara Dobretsberger and Professor Christian Roesler, were questions concerning the interpretation, creativity and effect of music, which required a transdisciplinary research approach. The thesis 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 theory 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 impulsive working methods and specific compositional techniques suggested a symbolic, archetypal language, which became the subject of this research, encompassing aesthetic, political, cultural, psychological and knowledge system-oriented questions.

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 reaching the most analogical conclusions and the most objective interpretation possible. Taking great care to avoid pathologising her findings, Leonor Dill presents fascinating connections between musical language, archetypal structures and the composer's biographical development, making a significant contribution to current debates in Schubert research and shedding new light on his work and creative process.