BIOGRAFI

Jonathan Swensen (born in 1996) is a laureate of the 2022 Avery Fisher Prize, Young Concert Artists 2018 and winner of both the 2019 Windsor International String Competition and the 2018 Khachaturian International Cello Competition. In 2023 he became a member of the Chambermusic Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. In his native Denmark he was also a recipient of the Jacob Gades Scholarship in 2019, the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize in 2017 and the first prize at the Danish String Competition in 2016. He graduated the Artist Diploma at New England Conservatory in the summer of 2023, concluding his 3 year studies with the legend Laurence Lesser. When Jonathans solo album “Fantasia” got published in 2022 it received rave reviews from both “The Strad Magazine”, “Gramophone Magazine”, “BBC Musicmagazine”, “Magasinet Klassisk” and Musical America named him “Artist of the month” shortly after the album was published. One of the praises in the reviews was an “artist of nuanced colours, relentlessness, imagination and a varied musical palette”. Jonathan Swensen made his concerto debut in March 2017, performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. Since then, he has performed with orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra in Wroclaw (both with and without conductor), the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and the Sun Symphony Orchestra in Vietnam. He is also a frequent performer at festivals in Denmark and further afield, appearing among others at the Tivoli Festival, the Copenhagen Summer Festival, the Hindsgavl Summer Festival and the Usedomer Musikfestival. This recent summer he had several debuts in American festivals as well, including playing in La Jolla Chambermusic festival for the first time, and Newport Chamberfest. He will have his debut in Wigmore Hall in december 2025, and an Alice Tully Hall debut in april 2025.

MERE OM MIG

What are your interests besides music?

My interests besides music is going for long walks. I love walking, it makes the mind walk, and when my mind is walking I feel generally it is way easier to figure out How to work on something, meditate over music, deal with an issue or calm myself down. Its a very important part of my every day life, and I feel like it helps every other part. I also love movies and Series, so I watch a lot of shows. I also love cooking, although I dont do it enough, and chilling with my friends. I love listening to rock or jazz music when going for walks.

Who are your biggest inspirations and why? 

My biggest inspirations change very often. Currently my biggest inspiration is Charles Mingus and his big band, and specifically an album he made called “the black saint and the sinner lady”. This album kind of changed/reaffirmed why I play music. It is probably the most animalistic and instinctive ways of listening to each other that I have ever witnessed in music. Sometimes they dont even Sound like they are making music, they purely are making sounds of the jungle, of the origins of humans, animals, the Universe, everything. It is this extreme and provoking combination between the animal and instinct which is in everyone of us, and immediately reacting and listening to everyone and everything around us without any single form of prejudice, that I strive to be as a musician and person. I also love the writing of Thomas Espedal. He is deeply inspired by musicians who choose to live life on their own terms, and don't conform to whatever society at that time wants them to be , which I absolutely love. His writing is cutting edge, honest, heartbreakingly beautiful, funny, and he also writes a lot about walking. When his wife and mother passed away (within a year they both died), he went walking for more than a year in the wilderness, and I find this to be a beautiful and meaningful way of dealing with inevitable grief. I am also super inspired by David Lynch, and his philosophies behind creativity, and How creativity is born.

Your top 3 favourite pieces of music

I’ll give you 4. I already mentioned this, but for sure “The Black Saint and the Sinner lady”, “Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky, Schubert 8th “unfinished” Symphony (specifically with Sandor Végh conducting”), and John Coltrane “My favourite things” , Live in Newport.

What do you like about playing chamber music?

In my opinion, chamber music is in everything. I get mad when people don’t play like a chamber musician when they are a soloist, because I believe that even when playing a concerto you often have a part which in fact is supporting or reacting to an obo solo, flute solo , or melody in the strings. It is a huge mistake and an “ego” oriented approach to life, to not see that everything one is doing is impossible to do without something else, and beauty only happens through empathy, peace, practise and passion. Everything is a chemical reaction , and if one can find the right combination of creativity and humanity , one can find endlessly beautiful results. I love playing chamber music because I feel like it represents what life is about to me. Communication, reaction, listening, initiative, emotion, chemical combinations, community, nature, spirituality. I feel like chamber music started in indigenous tribes when they were dancing in a circle and singing together, reaching god (or whatever you wanna call it) through communally transcendental purposes. I believe it is what makes us human, and I feel it is important to be brave and react to everything, and be open while keeping ones heart in place. I have a great passion for chamber music, since I feel it represents life from its most deepest purpose.

Tell us a fun fact about you

I have a tendency to be very clumsy and when I was young, I dropped my previous cello on the ground by accident, and the bridge broke and fell off. When I got it fixed, the luthier gave me another cello to borrow while he was fixing my cello. I completely fell in love with this cello, I bought it, and it is the cello I am still playing on today!!:) Sometimes being clumsy can feel like there was a hidden destiny behind