The auditions for the 2024 Pablo Casals International Award for young cellists are aimed at cellists under the age of 21. Seven young cellists were in the finals. Yo Kitamura (Japan) and Arne Jesper Zeller (Germany) share First Prize, while Luís Dias Canali (Portugal/Italy) and Gabriel Guignier (France) shared the AENA Special Prize ex aequo, and Ruoxi Jing (China) received Third Prize.
A past student of Jens Peter Maintz at the University of the Arts in Berlin and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Toho Gakuen College of Music, cellist Yo Kitamura won the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 29th Johannes Brahms International Competition, as well as the First Prize.
Arne Jesper Zeller is a scholarship holder of the Music Academy in Liechtenstein. He studied at the Music Department of the University of Mainz, and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Leipzig.
He has won the Anna Kull International Cello Competition in Graz (2020) and the Gustav Mahler International Cello Competition (2022), as well as Second Prize at the 29th Brahms International Competition in Pörtschach (2023).
