Clara Yuna Friedensburg

Born in 2007 in Oslo, Clara Yuna Friedensburg grew up in a family of musicians and began playing the cello at the age of seven. At eleven years old, she made her debut and subsequently performed as a soloist with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Clara was awarded the Prix Young Artist of the Year 2024 by the „Festival der Nationen in Bad Wörishofen“ and made her German debut as a soloist on this occasion with Tarmo Peltokoski and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

This year she was awarded with the Swedish Polestar Prize. She has received first prize and a special prize at the German national Jugend Musiziert competition and second prize at the international Anton Rubinstein Competition for young cellists, as well as at the international Young Musicians Competition in Tallinn. She was awarded "Talent of the Year" by the Norwegian Council of Cultural Schools at the age of 13.

At the age of eleven, she was admitted to the Young Talents programme at Norway’s Barratt Due Music Institute, studying with Ernst Simon Glaser and subsequently Ole Eirik Ree.

In 2021, Clara participated in the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, joining David Geringas’s masterclass and performing at the festival. Later the same year, she participated in Kronberg Academy’s chamber music workshop “Mit Musik – Miteinander” led by Kronberg alumni Ivan Karizna, Mairéad Hickey and Timothy Ridout. Participating in Kronberg Academy’s Cello Masterclass in 2022, she joined the masterclass of Frans Helmerson, whose student she became the year after.

In 2023, Clara participated in Verbier Festival Academy’s Soloist Programme as a Junior Student, joining solo and chamber music masterclasses with Frans Helmerson, Steven Isserlis, Nicolas Altstaedt, Kirill Gerstein and Gábor Takács-Nagy, as well as performing at several of the festival's chamber concerts.

She has received further advice by participating in masterclasses with esteemed musicians such as Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Daniel Müller-Schott, Danjulo Ishizaka, Claudio Bohorquez, Thorleif Thedéen, Andreas Brantelid, Jakob Koranyi and Hans Jensen.

As a laureate of the 31st Competition of the German Musical Instrument Fund, Clara plays a cello by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, dating from around 1845.

Clara is a scholarship holder of the Norwegian Tom Wilhelmsen Foundation and the German Hans and Stefan Bernbeck Foundation.

Since October 2024, Clara has been studying in the Kronberg Academy bachelor and then master programme, a joint degree programme of Kronberg Academy and the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK Frankfurt) with Frans Helmerson and from 2026 additionally with Torleif Thedéen. Her studies are funded by the Strauss patronage.