Twelve candidates will compete in the final round, which takes place at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
On Saturday, the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels announced its 12 finalists:
- Stella Chen (USA, 26)
- Timothy Chooi (Canada, 25)
- Ioana Cristina Goicea (Romania – Germany, 26)
- Luke Hsu (USA, 28)
- Sylvia Huang (Belgium, 25)
- Stephen Kim (USA, 23)
- Shannon Lee (Canada – USA, 26)
- Seiji Okamoto (Japan, 24)
- Júlia Pusker (Hungary, 27)
- Eva Rabchevska (Ukraine, 22)
- Ji Won Song (Korea, 26)
- Yukiko Uno (Japan, 23)
The final, which takes place at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts from 20 to 25 May, will see the candidates performing a concerto of their own choice and an unpublished work specially written for this year’s competition by Kimmo Hakola. They will be accompanied by the Belgian National Orchestra under the baton of Hugh Wolff.
Open to international violinists aged 18 to 30 who are ready to embark on an international career, the competition offers €25,000 to its 1st prize winner, as well as a CD recording, a number of prestigious international performance opportunities and the 4-year use of the 1708 ‘Huggins‘ Stradivarius, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
The inaugural QEMC in 1937 was devoted to the violin and dedicated to Eugène Ysaÿe, who had recently died. David Oistrakh, then aged 28, was the competition’s first winner. The first piano competition took place the year after. Singing was added in 1988 and, in 2017, the contest was opened out to cellists. There is also a composition competition, which is run outside of the four-year cycle.
The 2019 violin jury comprises Pierre Amoyal, Martin Beaver, Corina Belcea, Patrice Fontanarosa, Pamela Frank, Lorenzo Gatto, Koichiro Harada, Yossif Ivanov, Dong-Suk Kang, Victor Kissine, Jaime Laredo, Shirly Laub, Mihaela Martin, Midori, Natalia Prischepenko, Vadim Repin and Arabella Steinbacher.
The winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth Competition was the South Korean violinist Ji Young Lim.
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