69 violinists will compete in the upcoming violin competition in Brussels

In 2024, the Queen Elisabeth Competition will be dedicated to the violin for the twentieth time. After receiving 290 applications, the institution has announced the young talent that will proceed to the live rounds in Flagey and the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts. The first round will be held in Flagey from May 6 to 11, 2024.

The candidates include:

• Anna Agafia
• Clarissa Bevilacqua
• Claire Bourg
• Joshua Brown
• Angela Chan
• Hana Chang
• Jiayi Chen
• Po-Fan Chen
• Tong Chen
• I-Hao Cheng
• Elli Choi
• SongHa Choi
• Emmanuel Coppey
• Hawijch Elders
• Hiu Sing Fan
• Mira Marie Foron
• Kaori Furusawa
• Laurel Gagnon
• KayCee Galano
• Léon Haffner
• Kingston Ho
• Risa Hokamura
• Yiyang Hou
• Anna Im
• Luka Ispir
• Amia Janicki
• Lorenz Karls
• Meruert Karmenova
• Eun Che Kim
• Haram Kim
• Daniel Kogan
• Alice Lee
• Anna Lee
• Thomas Lefort
• Sofie Leifer
• Ruifeng Lin
• Bohdan Luts
• Charlotte Marckx
• Nathan Mierdl
• Teofil Milenkovic
• Mathilde Milwidsky
• Julia Mirzoev
• Georgii Moroz
• Maine Nishiyama
• Haerim Oh
• Audrey Park
• Julian Rhee
• Zixuan Shen
• Dmitry Smirnov
• Julia Smirnova
• Karen Su
• Adam Suska
• Ruslan Talas
• Ayaka Uchio
• Dmytro Udovychenko
• Pauline van der Rest
• Julian Walder
• Sophie Wang
• Alexandra Weissbecker
• Qingzhu Weng
• Tianren Xie
• Esther Yang
• Minami Yoshida
• Mio Yoshie
• Dayoon You
• Rok Zaletel-Cernoš
• Eva Zavaro
• Leonid Zheleznyi
• Kevin Zhu

For the first round, the candidates will prepare Eugène Ysaÿe's Sonata No.3 in d minor, three Caprices by N. Paganini, and a piece chosen from among 3 Romances op. 22 by Clara Schumann, Impromptu concertant by George Enescu, or Dryades et Pan, an excerpt of Mythes op. 30 by Karol Szymanowski. The jury will choose which works or parts of works each candidate must perform.

The semi-finals, to be held from May 13 to 18, will see 24 contestants perform a recital with piano accompaniment — including the compulsory work The Sun and Her Flowers by Charlotte Bray and a Mozart concerto with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, under the baton of Vahan Mardirossian.

Twelve finalists will be selected to perform in the final rounds from May 27 to June 1. They will play a concerto of their own choice, with the Belgian National Orchestra under the baton of Antony Hermus, as well as a work by Thierry Escaich.

The prizes include a First Prize of € 25,000, Second Prize, awarded by the Belgian Science Policy (Belspo) of € 20,000, Third Prize of € 17,000, Fourth Prize, this year awarded by the Government of the German-speaking Community of Belgium, of € 12,500, and Fifth Prize of € 10,000, and Sixth Prize of € 8,000.

Previous first prize winners include the likes of David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, Jaime Laredo, Phillippe Hischhorn, Miriam Fried, Vadim Repin, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Baiba Skride — and VC Artists Ray Chen and Ji-Young Lim.

To learn more, click here.