Read more news stories here<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\nThe 29-year-old Danish cellist Jonathan Swensen has been named the first recipient of the Olesen Music Award, a new Danish award recognising exceptional young classical musicians\u00a0with the artistic vision and international potential to shape the\u00a0future of classical music.<\/p>\n
Swensen will receive the DKK 500,000 (\u20ac67,000) prize at a concert at Mogens Dahl Concert Hall in Copenhagen on 25 April 2027. In addition, he will receive support in strengthening his visibility and position among concert halls and orchestras across the Nordic region.<\/p>\n
The prize was founded by the Erik & Susanna Olesen Charitable Foundation and will be awarded biennially to support outstanding young classical musicians at a pivotal stage in their careers.<\/p>\n
\u2019For me, receiving the Olesen Music Award is an enormous vote of confidence,\u2019 said Swensen.<\/p>\n
\u2019It feels as\u00a0though there are people who genuinely believe in me and want to help me. Music has the\u00a0power to develop us as human beings, and the opportunity to reach more people through the\u00a0Olesen Music Award is fantastic \u2013 and something I am incredibly grateful for.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2019Jonathan Swensen has a remarkable ability to make the music his own,\u2019 said\u00a0Stine Hasbirk, chair of the Olesen Music Award, violist and member of the Danish National Symphony\u00a0Orchestra.<\/p>\n
\u2019He possesses\u00a0extraordinary technical freedom, but technique is never the point \u2013 the music and its story\u00a0always come first. He plays with an energy, intensity and immediacy that can create those\u00a0rare moments when an audience loses all sense of time and place.\u2019<\/p>\n
Swensen received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2022 and was awarded joint first prize at the Naumburg International Cello Competition in 2024. His previous competition success include\u00a0the Windsor International String Competition (2019), Khachaturian International Cello\u00a0Competition (2018) and Young Concert Artists International Auditions (2018).<\/p>\n
He has performed as a soloist with orchestras in Denmark and internationally and is currently part of a residency with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra.\u00a0He has appeared in recital at\u00a0Wigmore Hall in London and Carnegie Hall in New York and performs regularly as a chamber\u00a0musician throughout Europe and the US, including as a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.<\/p>\n
Swensen studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music before continuing his studies with\u00a0Torleif Thed\u00e9en at the Norwegian Academy of Music and Laurence Lesser at New England\u00a0Conservatory in Boston, where he completed his artist diploma in 2023. He is currently artist in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, studying with Gary Hoffman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read more news stories here\u00a0 The 29-year-old Danish cellist Jonathan Swensen has been named the first recipient of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-609657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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