Leland Ko (cello) – OSM Competition

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Leland Ko, winner of the 2023 OSM Competition, has a wonderful capacity for reflection. The Chinese-Canadian cellist is open to what life has to teach him, and says what he enjoys most about his art form is the listening: “When we listen to others on stage with us—to people performing as we sit in the hall, or to ourselves play—I think we have the chance to find out something about ourselves or about others.”

Despite claiming not to have a particular this-is-when-I-fell-in-love-with-cello moment, Ko can still pinpoint many joyful and moving memories connected to music. One of his favourite experiences was sight-reading Fauré’s Piano Quartet in C minor for the first time at age 13. “Something about that piece and the newness of sight-reading and of chamber music completely hijacked all my senses and made my entire body feel like it was overflowing with this glowing sensation,” he says. Such early experiences, alongside the influence of the rich youth-orchestra culture he experienced in Boston, as well as summer music camps, guided Ko to pursue a career in music.

On May 1, 2025, Ko is set to have a full-circle moment as he performs the Walton Cello Concerto, conducted by Benjamin Zander, with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in that city’s famed Symphony Hall. “My childhood orchestra, one of my biggest musical and thinking influences, and sort of my childhood hall,” says Ko, “It already feels like a dream come true.” Ko, on a journey to be his best self, never forgets to stop and reflect on the stepping stones that have helped him along the way.