Léonie Sonning Talent Prize recipient 2026
Violinist
When Antonia Fuglsang was three years old, her parents asked whether she would like to play an instrument. Her father and grandmother both played the piano, so it seemed obvious that her answer would be the same. But Antonia wanted none of it. She wanted to play the violin. When they asked why, she replied: “Because the piano does not sing, but the violin does.” She has since developed a rather more nuanced view of the piano, but the violin has remained her instrument ever since.
Antonia grew up in Haderslev with three languages – Danish, German and Japanese – in a family where classical music was always present. Her great-grandmother was a concert pianist. There was always a piano in the house and CDs playing on the stereo. But no one in the family was a professional musician, so when Antonia started at Haderslev Music School at the age of five, it was with childlike curiosity rather than with a professional goal in mind. In the beginning, she hardly practised at all. She preferred climbing trees.
The turning point came when Antonia was ten or eleven. At masterclasses in Austria, she met for the first time other young musicians her own age, and it stimulated her enormously. She began practising more and wanting more. From the local music school in Haderslev she moved on to Kolding and later to Aarhus, with teachers who each inspired her in different ways. Her first teacher, Elisabeth La Cour, gave her a love of the violin. Jette Jokumsen in Kolding gave her challenges.
At the age of twelve, Antonia met one of her mentors, violin professor David Fruehwirth, at a masterclass in Italy. He taught her a sentence she still carries with her: “Be kind but firm.” And he introduced her to mental training, which has since become a central part of her approach to music and practising.
At sixteen, Antonia was admitted to the bachelor’s programme at the Jutland Academy of Music, where she studied with Professor Mo Yi.
She is now studying for her master’s degree at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne with the world-renowned violinist Renaud Capucon and Francois Sochard.
There she has also found a duo partner in the Japanese pianist Yosuke, who studies at the same institution. The first time they played together, everything fit immediately – rubato, nuance, timing. “We hardly needed to rehearse it together at all,” Antonia says.
She has also drawn musical inspiration from a masterclass with the conductor Misha Katz, which has opened new perspectives in her artistic expression. Antonia says that the people she has met throughout her life have had a profound influence on her development, both musically and personally. “I have been lucky in the people I have met,” she says.
Before every concert, Antonia meditates and checks in with how her body feels that day. She thinks of the stage as a blank sheet of paper on which she can paint with colours and figures. And she tries to sense the audience and what they need at that particular moment.
She has a strong interest in music therapy. That interest grew when, after a concert in Fredericia, a man told her that he was going through a difficult period in his life and that the music had been exactly what he needed. Tears came to his eyes, and he felt a warmth in his heart from Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
“I try to be a transmitter of light and of the universe, and to pass that on to the audience,” says Antonia. That conviction also drives her growing interest in music therapy. For Antonia, music is ultimately about giving energy, light and love to the people who come to listen.
