The Leonard Bernstein Award goes to a YouTube star!

Hayato Sumino is a pianist, composer, YouTuber and trained engineer: the 29-year-old Japanese has already become a sensation in his home country, filling concert halls with thousands of seats. He is now playing his way onto stages around the world - and will be honoured with the Leonard Bernstein Award, sponsored by the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in summer 2025.

Hayato Sumino, also known by his stage name ‘Cateen’, walks between worlds: between classical music, jazz and pop, between social media and the concert stage, between playfulness and seriousness. His YouTube channel has over 1.4 million followers and more than 200 million video views. Since his school days, he has been uploading piano arrangements of soundtracks from various video games such as ‘Super Mario’ or ‘The Legend of Zelda’, playing Mozart's ‘Turkish March’ in all 24 keys or performing his own variations of the famous English lullaby ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ in seven levels of difficulty. He also combines classical piano repertoire with his own arrangements and compositions, jazz improvisation and pop elements on the concert stage. With this combination of tradition and modernity, Hayato Sumino reaches a wide audience and at the same time represents a young generation of musicians who draw their artistic inspiration from a broad spectrum.  

The jury for the young talent award was impressed by Sumino's visionary creativity: ‘Hayato Sumino dissolves the boundaries between different musical genres. He improvises with great ease, is an outstanding interpreter of the classical repertoire and has an urge for freedom that is very important for jazz,’ said SHMF Director Dr Christian Kuhnt, explaining the decision.

The award winner is delighted with the honour: ‘Leonard Bernstein is one of my musical heroes and I grew up with his works, recordings and words. His creativity and humanity went beyond the music and left a legacy that I try to honour in my own way. I am deeply honoured to receive this important award, thank you!’

Hayato Sumino will be presented with the Leonard Bernstein Award at the prizewinners' concert on Friday 18 July 2025 in Lübeck. Together with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra (SHFO) under the direction of Holly Choe, he will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.  

The Leonard Bernstein Award is endowed with 10,000 euros and has been sponsored by the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe since 2002. The internationally coveted young talent prize has been awarded to Lang Lang, Martin Grubinger, Alisa Weilerstein, Krzystof Urbánski, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Vivi Vassileva and most recently Anastasia Kobekina, among others. The Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, which includes Provinzial Nord Brandkasse AG, LBS Landesbausparkasse NordOst AG, DekaBank and Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband in addition to the state's savings banks, is sending a clear signal in the area of talent development with this award.

‘Hayato Sumino fulfils everything you could wish for in a young ambitious musician: he is courageous, curious, creative and incredibly talented - a more than worthy winner of the Leonard Bernstein Award. We congratulate him wholeheartedly!’ says Oliver Stolz, President of the Savings Banks and Giro Association for Schleswig-Holstein. 

This year's jury consisted of Jamie and Alexander Bernstein as well as Nina Bernstein Simmons as members of the Bernstein family, Christoph Eschenbach (Principal Conductor of the SHFO), Ute Fesquet (Independent Music Manager & Executive Producer, consultant for artists, labels such as Universal Music/Deutsche Grammophon and artist management companies such as Konzertdirektion Schmid), Per Hauber (President of Sony Classical International), Dr Christian Kuhnt (Director of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival), Barbara Lebitsch (Artistic Director of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg) and Oliver Stolz (President of Sparkassen- und Giroverband für Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival). Christian Kuhnt (Director of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival), Barbara Lebitsch (Artistic Director of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg) and Oliver Stolz (President of the Savings Banks and Giro Association for Schleswig-Holstein).