The 21st edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, dedicated to the piano, came to a close on Saturday 31 May 2025 in a packed Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, pulsing with the energy of the twelve finalists. A flagship event on the Belgian and international music scene, the Competition highlights exceptional young artists every year. The 2025 4-volume collection gathers the most striking moments from this edition. First Prize winner Nikola Meeuwsen succeeds Jonathan Fournel, Lukas Vondracek, Boris Giltburg, Denis Kozhukhin, and Anna Vinnitskaya. He shines here in Prokofiev's Concerto No. 2, accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Kazushi Ono, as well as in Mendelssohn's Variations serieuses. Other orchestral performances on the album include: Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 3 by Valere Burnon (Third Prize, VRT Canvas-Klara audience prize and Musiq3 Prize), Brahms' Concerto No. 2 by Wataru Hisasue (Second Prize), and Schumann's Concerto by Arthur Hinnewinkel (Fourth Prize). The collection closes with Mozart's Concerto No. 27 performed by Jiaxin Min, accompanied by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Vahan Mardirossian. A prominent place is given to solo and contemporary repertoire: the two compulsory works, Music for the Heart by Kris Defoort - performed by Yuki Yoshimi - and Two Studies by Ana Sokolovic - by Shiori Kuwahara - precede Liszt's Reminiscences de Norma by Masaya Kamei (Fifth Prize) and Brahms' Sonata No. 1 by Sergey Tanin (Sixth Prize), recorded at Flagey. A vibrant testimony to this unforgettable edition, to be discovered and rediscovered with each listen.

The 4CD box set of the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition will be available as from Saturday 8 June 2024. The laureates of this year will be heard in their performances of the Mozart Concertos with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Vahan Mardirossian, as well as the major concertos from the repertoire from the finals with the Belgian National Orchestra under the baton of Antony Hermus. Of course, their chamber music performances from the semi-finals will not be overlooked. The programme of the discs will be available as from 2 June 2024.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition 2024 gives us the opportunity of diving back into the performances of 4 prize-winning laureates of the 2009 and 2012 sessions devoted to the violin. In this exclusive box set we shall hear Ray Chen (First Prize and Canvas-Klaraprijs 2009), Lorenzo Gatto (Second Prize and Prix Musiq3 2009), Vineta Sareika (laureate 2009) and Andrey Baranov (First Prize 2012). Ray Chen starts off this box set with the concerto of Tchaikovsky with which he made such an impression in 2009, and also winning the audience's Canvas-Klaraprijs. An indelible moment of the Queen Elisabeth Competition; Ray Chen had won over the public, taking with him the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Gilbert Varga at the height of it's form. He had previously offered in the final a magnificent Sonata of Franck, full of maturity, and this can be found on disc for the first time. Next comes the Belgian Lorenzo Gatto, revealed to the international audience in this same competition. In the final he had presented a masterly Concerto of Paganini, yet also a very great Sonata No. 3 by George Enescu. His programme is here completed by two extracts of his performances in the semi-final at the Brussels Conservatory: the Sonata for violin solo Op. 27/6 by Eugene Ysa�e, and, as an encore, the Havanaise Op. 83 of Saint-Saens. Vineta Sareika also left her mark on the 2009 competition. She who is today Konzertmeister of the Berlin Philharmonic had offered the highly majestic Concerto of Elgar, a monument of the repertory. Yet the Queen Elisabeth Competition is also the occasion to hear Mozart's concertos, and here we find Vineta Sareika in the Concerto No. 5 KV 219 of which she gave a splendid rendition in the semi-final, accompanied by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Michael Hofstetter. Finally, this box set concludes with Andrey Baranov, First Prize in the 2012 Competition. Imperial in the Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich, he shows that he is also a musician full of refinement and sensitivity in Mozart's Concerto No. 3 KV 216 and the two pieces of Tchaikovsky in the semi-final in Flagey - the Meditation (Souvenir d'un lieu cher) and the Valse-Scherzo - complete the portrait of this musician who is also a magnificent chamber player. Four personalities, four sensitivities, four superb violinists to rediscover without delay in some of the great concertos in the repertory and in recordings, for the most part newly released.

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Classical Music

Classical Music