Two Cellists Share the Pablo Casals International Award for 2024

Yo Kitamura (Japan) and Arne Jesper Zeller (Germany) were named as the winners of this prize for young cellists

The final auditions for the 2024 Pablo Casals International Award for young cellists took place on November 16, at the Tívoli Auditorium of the Pau Casals Municipal School of Music in El Vendrell (EMMPAC). Given by the Pau Casals Foundation, the award offers a total prize pool of €36,000 and is aimed at cellists under the age of 21.

Seven young cellists proceeded to the finals — after which it was announced that Yo Kitamura (Japan) and Arne Jesper Zeller (Germany) would share First Prize, while Luís Dias Canali (Portugal/Italy) and Gabriel Guignier (France) shared the AENA Special Prize ex aequo, and Ruoxi Jing (China) received Third Prize.

Two other cellists, Yewon Cho (South Korea) and Klaudio Zoto (Albania) received honorary mentions.

First Prize carries a value of €18,000, the AENA Special Prize is worth €12,000 and Third Prize is worth €6,000.

A past student of Jens Peter Maintz at the University of the Arts in Berlin and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Toho Gakuen College of Music, cellist Yo Kitamura won the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 29th Johannes Brahms International Competition, as well as the First Prize and five special prizes at the 92nd Japan Music Competition in 2023. He made his orchestral debut at the age of nine, and his recital debut followed at ten.

Arne Jesper Zeller studied with Moritz Reutlinger (Trier) and Daniel Geiss (Music Department of the University of Mainz), and at the age of fourteen, he joined the pre-university class of Peter Bruns at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Leipzig. Since October 2024, Zeller studies at The Kronberg Academy, in Germany, with Frans Helmerson.

He has won the Anna Kull International Cello Competition in Graz (2020) and the Gustav Mahler International Cello Competition (2022), as well as Second Prize at the 29th Brahms International Competition in Pörtschach (2023).

In 2024, the prize jury comprised cellists Ophélie Gaillard, Danjulo Ishizaka, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, and Arnau Tomàs. Bernard Meillat, the Foundation’s musical advisor, served as the jury’s secretary.