Danish String Quartet Wins 2025 Léonie Sonning Music Prize

The Danish String Quartet is the first ensemble to win the prestigious award endowed with DKK 1,000,000

Awarded since 1959, the international Léonie Sonning Music Prize is Denmark’s highest music honor recognizing a renowned classical music composer, musician, conductor, or singer. 

The 2025 edition is the first time the prize has been awarded to an ensemble rather than an individual artist. 

The Danish String Quartet (DSQ) will receive the award with one million DKK (around $150,000 USD) for “creating an original musical identity that serves as an inspiration to other musicians and unleashes musical energy beyond genres.” 

Comprising violinists Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and Frederik Øland, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard, and cellist Fredrik Sjölin, the DSQ made its debut 23 years ago and has since been known for its musical communication, command of technique, and innovative programming. 

The DSQ made its first recordings as the Young Danish String Quartet in 2006, which gained them international recognition. Sjölin joined the quartet in 2008, while the other three Danish members had played together as teenagers. In 2001, the group was trained by Tim Frederiksen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

In August 2024, the group released “Keel Road” on ECM — their third album focusing on folk music. Their previous works on ECM included the recording project “PRISM” (2018-2023), which garnered many positive reviews and was nominated at the GRAMMY Awards. 

This season, the group embarks on three tours across North America. In May and June of 2025, the DSQ will present a curated concert series across Svendborg, Aarhus, Roskilde, and Copenhagen. 

Inspired by Shostakovich’s letters and string quartets, the DSQ will also produce and premiere a new musical theater performance, “I Press Your Hands Warmly,” featuring actor Lars Mikkelsen. 

The Grand Prize Concert of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize will be held on June 5, 2025, at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The DSQ will be joined by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and singers from the Danish National Girls’ Choir. 

Past recipients of the prize include Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and Emmanuel Pahud. 

“Besides being four outstanding instrumentalists, the Danish String Quartet is a unique musical collective with international influence,” said Léonie Sonning Music Foundation’s board chair, Esben Tange in a press release. “With a performance style marked by great authority and sensitivity, where classical chamber music, brand new compositions, and Nordic folk music are equally integrated, they have created an original musical identity that serves as an inspiration to other musicians and unleashes musical energy beyond genres.”

“We are deeply honored and amazed to receive the Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2025,” the DSQ expressed. “We are thankful and humbled. We see it as a great recognition for us, but also for chamber music in the broadest sense — this collective discipline, where you collaborate, communicate, and seek out each other and the audience. 

“Denmark is a chamber music powerhouse, and in the Danish String Quartet, we are just a part of a large environment consisting of amateurs, chamber music societies, music schools, passionate individuals, summer courses, young talents, and the current and former generations of amazing Danish chamber music ensembles,” the quartet added. “We look forward to celebrating the prize in May and June of 2025, and we will do our best to ensure that chamber music continues to live and breathe in Denmark and across the world.”

"From DR’s choirs and orchestras, we extend our enthusiastic and heartfelt congratulations to the Danish String Quartet on receiving the Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2025, and we are delighted to once again do our part to make the award ceremony a special event,” said Kim Bohr, Ensemble Director at DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation). “In a musical collective, each musician is part of a larger whole, and in DR’s ensembles, we are especially pleased to see this year’s prize awarded to a group of people that so significantly manages to bring music to life by playing together so sublimely.”