Prizes awarded at Belgium’s International Music Competition Triomphe de l’Art

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The ninth International Music Competition Triomphe de l’Art concluded on 17 February with a gala concert at the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels, Belgium. This year’s competition was dedicated to string instrumentalists and chamber ensembles, and awarded its grand prize of €1,000 to 20-year-old French-Turkish violinist Bartu Elci-Ozsoy.

Elci-Ozsoy is concurrently pursuing master’s degrees in violin at the Paris Conservatoire and in conducting at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris in France. He plays on a 1760 G.B Guadagnini violin, which he was recently loaned by the Paris Conservatoire.

The string instrumentalists were divided into two groups according to age. In the first group, for performers aged between 16 and 20, the first prize of €400 was awarded to Slovakian violinist Richard Cibula, the second prize of €300 was split between Dutch violinist Pieter Streefkerk and Armenian-Belgian violinist Elen Shahinans, while the third prize of €250 was divided between South Korean cellist Yewon Cho, Chinese cellist Cuiting Liang, and Luxembourger cellist Matis Grisó.

In the second group, for string instrumentalists aged between 21 and 35, the first prize of €500 went to Luxembourger cellist Cyprien Keiser, second prize of €350 was divided between Polish violinist Adam Suska and German cellist Hanna Daub, and the third prize of €300 was awarded to Dutch violist Duleen van Gunsteren.

In the category for chamber music ensembles, the first prize of €550 was won by the Paddington Trio, comprising Finnish violinist Tuulia Hero, Irish cellist Patrick Moriarty, and US pianist Stephanie Tang. The second prize of €400 went to the Otilka Quartet, while the third prize of €350 was divided between the ADAM Quartet, the Utrecht Piano Trio, and the Cong Quartet.

Further prizes awarded at the competition included masterclasses, strings, scores, concert engagements, and roses embedded with diamonds.

Playing

In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers. It’s packed full of exercises for students, plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing.

Teaching

The Strad’s Masterclass series brings together the finest string players with some of the greatest string works ever written. Always one of our most popular sections, Masterclass has been an invaluable aid to aspiring soloists, chamber musicians and string teachers since the 1990s.

Calendars

American collector David L. Fulton amassed one of the 20th century’s finest collections of stringed instruments. This year’s calendar pays tribute to some of these priceless treasures, including Yehudi Menuhin’s celebrated ‘Lord Wilton’ Guarneri, the Carlo Bergonzi once played by Fritz Kreisler, and four instruments by Antonio Stradivari.