Jonathan Swensen offers a fresh take on lesser-known works for solo cello for his stunning debut album, Fantasia. Alongside the Kodály Sonata sits the seldom-heard Khachaturian Sonata-Fantasie for Solo Cello, plus a newly commissioned work by Danish composer Bent Sørensen, Farewell-Fantasia.

Swensen comments: 'My goal with this album was to create the illusion that the music was being played for the first time: a fresh take, what one might call a "creation of sound in the moment". It is only when I am playing that I truly feel music. The fact that it was written many years ago does not change that the music is happening now, in this moment, when the audience hears it. In my opinion, this is what makes music amazing. Works that stand the test of time do so because they will always remain fresh to interpretation, and the moment they are played, they become once again fresh, something that is happening right now, a story in need of being told in a different way which we haven't heard yet. This is the magic of music.'

Swensen won the 2019 Windsor Festival International String Competition, his prize for winning included the recording of this brilliant debut album as part of the Windsor Festival's ongoing relationship with Champs Hill Records. He is the recipient of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant and also the winner of the 2018 Khachaturian International Cello Competition. In his native Denmark, Swensen was also a recipient of the Musikanmelderringens Artist Prize in 2020, the Jacob Gades Scholarship in 2019, the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize in 2017 and the first prize winner at the Danish String Competition in 2016.

Swensen has performed with orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, and Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. He also performs at festivals in Denmark and further afield, including the Tivoli Festival, the Copenhagen Summer Festival, the Hindsgavl Summer Festival and the Usedomer Musikfestival.