Cellist Anastasia Kobekina Wins the Leonard Bernstein Award

Given by the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the €10,000 prize has previously been won by artists such as Lang Lang and Alisa Weilerstein

The Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina has been named as the recipient of the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival for 2024. The award was established in 2002, and carries a monetary value of €10,000.

Born in Russia, Kobekina studied with Frans Helmerson and Jens-Peter Maintz in Germany and then in Paris with Jerome Pernoo. She has been a prizewinner at the Tchaikovsky Competition (St Petersburg, 2019) and the Enescu Competition (Bucharest, 2016).

As well as having been a BBC New Generation Artist between 2018 and 2021, she was also made a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Artist in 2022.

In 2024 the jury for the Leonard Bernstein Award comprised Jamie Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein, Nina Bernstein Simmons, Christoph Eschenbach, Ute Fesquet, Per Hauber, Dr Christian Kuhnt, Barbara Lebitsch, and Oliver Stolz.

Previous recipients of the award include Lang Lang, Alisa Weilerstein, and Isata Kanneh-Mason.

"Anastasia Kobekina combines technical skills with warmth," said Dr Christian Kuhnt, the director of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival. "What particularly impressed us was the playful ease with which she moves through different stylistic eras."

"It is a great honor to receive the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award and to be able to follow in the footsteps of so many fantastic artists that I admire," Kobekina said. "To have a connection through this award to such a comprehensive, versatile artist as Leonard Bernstein is an inspiration, and I see it as an exciting challenge to live up to his ideals and legacy and to do justice to my music."

"I am deeply grateful for the recognition and support from the esteemed jury and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival," she added.