Aennchen and Eigil Harby Foundation 2025
This year's award recipients are the string quartet AKELA (DKDM) and violinist Aoi Tomioka (DJM)
The Aennchen and Eigil Harby Foundation awards two major scholarships annually to talented young musicians, also known as the Ungdommens Sonningpris (Youth Sonning Prize). This year, the scholarships were awarded to the string quartet AKELA, who are soloist class students at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and violinist Aoi Tomioka, who is a soloist class student at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus.
The award ceremony took place at a public concert at Musikhuset Aarhus on 25 November 2025, where the award winners played works by Ravel, Chausson and Grazyna Bacewicz.
AKELA was formed at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 2019 and is currently studying as an ensemble in the soloist class under the guidance of Professor Tim Frederiksen and the Danish String Quartet. AKELA means joy, and this is precisely the premise for the quartet's ensemble playing. The joy of creating and sharing music has driven AKELA to interpret the classical quartet repertoire with presence and curiosity at chamber music festivals, international masterclasses, competitions and concerts both at home and abroad.
Read more about AKELA.
Aoi Tomioka is a soloist student at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. She began her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus in 2017 with Prof. Mo Yi, after winning the Talent Award in the junior and senior categories at Unge spiller Klassisk (Young People Play Classical Music) in 2014 and 2016, respectively. Tomioka has received a number of scholarships and has often served as concertmaster for the conservatory orchestra during her studies. In 2023, she performed as a soloist with the conservatory's string orchestra. She has also participated in numerous festivals both in Denmark and abroad.
The Aennchen and Eigil Harby Foundation is one of Denmark's largest music foundations. The foundation's primary purpose is to award travel grants to support soloist class students at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. The foundation also owns a collection of instruments that are loaned to students at the conservatories.
