JONATHAN SCHWARZ (VIOLIN), AMELIE WALLNER (VIOLIN), MAYU KONOE (VIOLA), LUKAS SCHWARZ (VIOLONCELLO)

»The Leonkoro Quartet [...] has an enormous stage presence, burns for the music, plays with full risk and amazes with the empathy for the respective sound of the pieces [...]« The string quartet, founded in Berlin in 2019, could hardly be described more aptly than in the review published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in January 2022.

The ensemble is framed by brothers Jonathan and Lukas Schwarz on 1st violin and cello, with Amelie Wallner on 2nd violin and Mayu Konoe on viola providing the middle voices. Leonkoro, in Esperanto: Lionheart, alludes not coincidentally to Astrid Lindgren's children's book about two brothers, a book that juxtaposes the grave fact of dying with a large and heartfelt portion of consolation – which connects this book with quartet music.

The year 2022 is a year of awards for the Leonkoro Quartet: In March 2022, the ensemble was honoured with the coveted and highly endowed Jürgen Ponto Foundation Music Prize, which is awarded every two years to an outstanding string quartet.

In April 2022, the four musicians won first prize at the International String Quartet Competition at Wigmore Hall London and were also awarded nine of twelve special prizes. These include the prize for the best performance of a work from the 19th century, the Britten Pears Young Prize.

In May 2022, the ensemble received 1st prize at the Quatuor à Bordeaux competition. They not only won over the top-class jury, but also the audience, who awarded them the Audience Prize as well as the Young Audience Prize. At the end of the month, they were accepted into the prestigious BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists programme, of which the quartet will be a part from 2022–2024. This was followed by the MERITO String Quartet Award in November 2022.

In addition to studying chamber music with Heime Müller at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, the quartet has been studying with Günter Pichler (Primarius Alban Berg Quartet) at the Chamber Music Institute of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía Madrid since 2020 with the generous support of Santander Consumer Bank AG.

In addition, the Leonkoro Quartet is intensively supported by members of the Artemis Quartet at the Berlin University of the Arts. The four musicians have received further artistic impulses from Alfred Brendel, Reinhard Göbel, Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet), Oliver Wille (Kuss Quartet) and Luc-Marie Aguera (Quatuor Ysaÿe).

In the 2022/2023 season, the Leonkoro Quartet will give guest performances at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the CAPE Ettelbruck, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the VIBRE Festival in Bordeaux, the String Quartet Festival in Heidelberg and the Dresden Music Festival, among others. The ensemble is also starting its three-year residency in Leeds and will give two concerts at the Esterhazy Palace.