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Cellist Laura van der Heijden and the Fibonacci Quartet join the programme
The European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) has announced the performers that will be joining its Rising Stars programme for 2027–28, following nominations from the artistic teams of concert halls across Europe. The Rising Stars are the Fibonacci Quartet, cellist Laura van der Heijden, pianists Junyan Chen and Elia Cecino, clarinettist Arthur Stockel and trumpeter Aaron Azunda Akugbo.
The programme supports emerging performers by organising approximately 110 concerts and 70 special projects annually, as well as offering training opportunities. Each artist also receives a bursary to commission a new work, with at least half to be commissioned from female or gender-diverse composers as part of the programme’s Keychange pledge.
Van der Heijden rose to prominence when she won the 2012 BBC Young Musician competition at the age of 15. She is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, studying with Antje Weithaas and Leonid Gorokhov, and is a member of the acclaimed Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, an associate ensemble of Wigmore Hall. She is the recipient of an Edison Klassiek Award, BBC Music Magazine Newcomer of the Year Award and the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award.
Formed at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Fibonacci Quartet comprises violinists Luna De Mol and Kryštof Kohout, violist Elliot Kempton and cellist Findlay Spence. It has won the first prize at competitions including the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Competition, the International Triomphe de l’Art Competition, the Cavatina Chamber Music Competition, and was the first ensemble ever to win both the first prize and audience award at the Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in 2024. This year, the quartet also became a Borletti-Buitoni Trust artist and received the €60.000 quadrennial MERITO String Quartet Award.
The ECHO Rising Stars programme was established in 1995 and has provided a platform to string players including violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Janine Jansen and Renaud Capuçon, cellist Kian Soltani, and the Casals, Belcea and Modigliani quartets.
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