Lyana Ulikhanyan, a 15-year-old Armenian cellist from Yerevan, has won the prestigious Landgrave of Hesse Prize at Germany’s Kronberg Academy.
She shares the €5,000 award in equal parts with Miles Levine, 20, of the United States. The prize was established in 1994, the year of the first Cello Masterclasses, and goes to participants who particularly impress the faculty with their talent and artistic potential.
The 2026 masterclasses drew 185 young musicians from around 35 countries to Kronberg. Over 6 days they worked with Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Maintz, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt and Ildikó Szabó, ending on September 30 with 2 final concerts and the awards ceremony at the Casals Forum.
Five cellists were honored, and Ulikhanyan is the youngest. The Frans Helmerson Sponsorship Award, also worth €5,000, went to Hun Choi, 25, of South Korea and Hugo Svedberg, 18, of the United Kingdom, and the Kronberg Cello Masterclasses Sponsorship Award of €500 to Luís Dias Canali, 17, of Portugal.
Ulikhanyan was born on December 3, 2010 and has played the cello since she was 4. She studies at the Tchaikovsky music school in Yerevan under David Melkonyan, and with Denis Severin at the LISA Academy of Music in Europe.
She won a Grand Prize in 2018 and received a cello as the award. She has taken prizes at more than 30 competitions, including second prize at the David Geringas International Cello Competition in 2023 and, in 2022, first prizes at the Debut Concert competition in Vienna’s Musikverein, the MaestroVision Awards in Beijing, the Montfort International Cello Competition in Vienna and the Edward Mirzoyan Composing Competition in Yerevan.
She has performed as a soloist with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Armenian State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Armenian State Chamber Orchestra, Nova Symphony Orchestra in Vienna and the Athens Symphony Orchestra, and has studied in masterclasses with Mischa Maisky, Marc Coppey, Danjulo Ishizaka, Claudio Bohórquez, Alexander Chaushian and Sevak Avanesyan.
She plays an instrument made by the German luthier Oliver Radke and is a member of the Artis Futura Music Foundation.
Nicolas Altstaedt took the Landgrave of Hesse Prize in 2004 and is now among Europe’s leading cellists. Zlatomir Fung, who shared it in 2016, went on to win the Tchaikovsky Competition.
The Kronberg Academy was founded in 1993 and began by training young cellists before expanding into violin, viola and piano. Mstislav Rostropovich called the town the world capital of the cello.
