Special prize for cello student

“Sweden’s best young string student.”

Young cellist Tomas Lundström, recipient of the 2013 Jan Wallanderpris. Image: www.kmh.se
Cellist Tomas Lundström, 25, was conferred the honor “Sweden’s best young string student.” In this particular prize, called the Jan Wallanderpriset after Handelsbanken’s former director and chairman, the right to borrow and use a cello made in 1741 by legenday Gennaro Gagliano is also included. Lundström began playing the cello when he was about 4 years old, and when he was 10 he was deemed an unusually gifted cellist. Lundström also won a talent show on TV3 and has studied at the Conservatory of Music in Moscow.
A Gagliano cello (this one a newer version than the one given on loan to Lundström). Gennaro Gagliano (1740-1780) belonged to a Naples family famous for making stringed instruments. Image courtesy of: www.philippe-girardin.net
“Many of my musical ideals come from my time of studies in Moscow,” he says. “I want to continuously develop my playing. And this instrument will help me do just that.” Last year Lundström’s sister Sofia Hansen won the same prize, and with it the access to an expensive viola, also made in the 18th century by the Gagliano family in Naples. Hansen has played chamber music concertos with some of Sweden’s leading classical musicians. Along with Sofia and two other Wallanderpris recipients, Daniel Migdal (recipient of the prize in 2010) and Oscar Treitler (2011), who both have borrowed Gagliano instruments, Tomas will now complete a permanent string quartet. The four instruments have been obtained and are owned by a foundation close to Handelsbanken, and are being kept at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music. The Wallanderpris is awarded annually to one of Sweden’s most prominent string students at one of the music colleges in Sweden. Apart from the honor that comes with the prize, the student gets the opportunity to use a first class instrument during a period of time. The recipients are selected by an international jury.