New York’s 2024 Naumburg International Cello Competition Names Joint First Prize Winners

Cellists Leland Ko and Jonathan Swensen were both given first prize at this year's edition of the competition

The 2024 Naumburg International Cello Competition has recently come to a close at the Manhattan School of Music, in New York. Established in 1926 by banker and amateur cellist Walter Wehle Naumburg, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation and its competitions support young classical musicians to launch their professional careers.

The 2024 competition was streamed on The Violin Channel and is available for playback here. 

VC Young Artist cellist Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant and was recently featured as both Musical America’s ‘New Artist of the Month’ and ‘One to Watch’ in Gramophone Magazine.

Jonathan has performed with orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Mobile Symphony, and the Greenville Symphony.

Jonathan joined the 2024 Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2024 and has captured First Prizes at the 2019 Windsor International String Competition, the 2018 Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions.

A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Jonathan continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and Laurence Lesser at the New England Conservatory, where he received his Artist Diploma in May 2023.

A cellist of Chinese-Canadian descent born and raised in the Boston area, Leland Ko was named a recipient of the Presidential Scholar Award at New England Conservatory for 2022-2024 and the Spark Fund from The Joy of Music Inc., and was a Young Artist in Residence for American Public Media’s radio program Performance Today in 2023.

He recently won first prizes at the Boston Concert Artist Society auditions, the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Competition, the 2023 Hong Kong Generation Next Arts International Music Competition, and the 2023 Concours OSM. He was named a winner of the 2023 Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank auditions as well as the 2024 Concert Artists Guild Louis and Susan Meisel Competition.

Leland was a long-time student of Ronald Lowry and Paul Katz before attending Princeton University, where he graduated with an A.B. in German Literature.  He went on to complete an M.M. at The Juilliard School under the teaching of Minhye Clara Kim, Timothy Eddy, and Natasha Brofsky, and then earned an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory under the guidance of Yeesun Kim and Donald Weilerstein.

Previous winners have included VC Artist Tessa Lark, VC Artist Merz Trio, Louis Kaufman, Li-Wei Qin, Clancy Newman, Robert Mann, Berl Senofsky, Joseph Silverstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Leonidas Kavakos, Axel Strauss, and Frank Huang.