Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition Announces Winners

The Leonkoro Quartet, of Germany, won First Prize as well as both audience prizes

(Photo credit: Nikolaj Lund Photography)

The 2022 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition was won by the Leonkoro Quartet. Founded in 2019 in Berlin, the quartet is made up of brothers Jonathan and Lukas Schwarz (violin and cello respectively), Amelie Wallner (violin), and Mayu Konoe (viola).

As part of their prize, the quartet will receive a set of bows by French master craftsman Edwin Clément, an album recording on Harmonia Mundi/Mirare, and an international tour organized by CLB Management to Italy, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Canada.

Alongside their success in Bordeaux, the group recently won First Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. They have also recently been named as members of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Scheme, and received Second Prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani competition in mid-2021.

"We are so excited and thankful to have so much going on after a long period of silence, cancellations, and uncertainty," the Leonkoro Quartet told The Violin Channel. "We now have several debuts coming up in many different countries so we’re definitely looking forward to those!"

Second Prize, as well as the Prize for a Contemporary Work, went to the Chaos String Quartet, while Third Prize went to the Barbican Quartet. The Leonkoro Quartet also received the Audience Award and the Young Audience Award.

You can watch a snippet of their prize-winning performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3: