Finalists Announced at Queen Elisabeth Comp – Including 3 VC 'Young Artists'

The 12 Finalists, have just minutes ago, been announced at the 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition – including 3 VC ‘Young Artists’.

The 2015 Finalists are:

• 18 year old VC ‘Young Artist’ Stephen Waarts from United States/Holland
• 22 year old VC ‘Young Artist’ William Hagen from the United States
• 24 year old VC ‘Young Artist’ Tobias Feldmann from Germany
• 20 year old William Ching‐Yi Wei from Taiwan
• 22 year old Ji Yoon Lee from South Korea
• 23 year old Thomas Reif from Germany
• 21 year old Fumika Mohri from Japan
• 21 year old Kenneth Renshaw from the United States
• 25 year old Bomsori Kim from South Korea
• 26 year old Oleksii Semenenko from the Ukraine
• 20 year old Ji Young Lim from South Korea
• 28 year old Xiao Wang from China

REAR: VC ‘Young Artist’ William Hagen, Kenneth Renshaw, VC ‘Young Artist’ Stephen Waarts, Thomas Reif, VC ‘Young Artist’ Tobias Feldmann, Oleksii Semenenko. FRONT: Bomsori Kim, Ji Yoon Lee, Ji Young Lim, Fumika Mohri, Wang Xiao, William Ching‐Yi Wei

For the Final round, each candidate will present an unpublished work for violin and orchestra written specially for the competition, and a major Concerto of their own choice – to be performed with conductor Marin Alsop and the National Orchestra of Belgium.

The final round will be held over 6 nights from May 25th – 30th, 2015.

The 12 finalists will now move to the Queen Elisabeth College of Music at a rate of two candidates per day to spend 1 full week in peaceful preparation for the final round - without any communication with any person not involved with the organisation of the event.

Widely respected as one of the most prestigious and coveted classical music accolades, the 1st prize winner will receive 25,000 Euro (USD$31,000), a CD recording, a number of international concert engagements and the 3 year use of the ‘Huggins’ Stradivarius – on generous loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

Full playbacks of the Semi-Final round are available at:  http://bit.ly/1RACd4n

The Violin Channel will be reporting live from the Palais des Beaux-Arts, in Brussels for this year's Final round.

You won’t miss a beat!

PICTURED: 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition Semi-Finalists, VC ‘Young Artists’ Stephen Waarts, William Hagen and Tobias Feldmann.