The string quartet is the first ensemble to ever win the accolade, which is usually awarded to individual artists
The Danish Quartet has been awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize for 2025. The prize, worth 1 million DKK (US $150,000), is one of the world’s leading classical music awards, which recognises internationally acclaimed musicians.
Past recipients of the award include Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and most recently, Emmanuel Pahud. The Danish Quartet is the first ensemble to win the award, for having ‘created an original musical identity that serves as an inspiration to other musicians and unleashes musical energy beyond genres.’
The quartet, comprising violinists Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and Frederik Øland, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard and Fredrik Sjölin, said it was honoured and amazing to receive the Léonie Sonning Music Prize for 2025, describing themselves as ‘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, seek out each other and the audience. Denmark is a chamber music powerhouse, and in the Danish 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.’
‘This is the first time a collective has received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Thank you for this, and thank you for the recognition of Denmark’s chamber music heritage, a musical tradition that is more relevant today than ever before. 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.’
Esben Tange, chairman of the board of the Léonie Sonning Music Foundation. acknowledged the quartet’s influence throughout Denmark and internationally:
‘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.’
The ensemble will receive the award at the Grand Prize Concert on 5 June 2025, which will be held at the Concert Hall of the Royal Danish Academy of Music. Incidentally, the Danish Quartet’s original breakthrough occurred in the same concert hall in 2004, where the ensemble won the P2 Chamber Music Competition as teenagers.
The Danish Quartet will make numerous performance appearances in Denmark in May and June of 2025. The quartet has curated a concert series that reflects their visionary approach, seamlessly crossing concert formats and musical genres.
Audiences can look forward to four intimate Gold Concerts, celebrating the traditional chamber concert in Svendborg, Aarhus, Roskilde, and Copenhagen.
Additionally, the Danish Quartet will perform alongside House of Cards actor Lars Mikkelsen at the Bellevue Theatre in a brand-new musical theater performance, I Press Your Hands Warmly. This production, created by the quartet, is inspired by composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s letters and string quartets. The show will tour internationally in the coming years, and its world premiere will be part of the prize celebration.
At Refshaleøen, the quartet will host a day of celebrating Nordic folk music, featuring their own interpretation of the genre, along with performances by other folk music bands.
Read: The Strad Recommends: Danish Quartet: Keel Road
Read: Uncovered Imogen Holst Violin Concerto to receive first public performance
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