Queen Elisabeth Competition


The Queen Elisabeth Competition is an international competition for career-starting musicians held in Brussels. The competition is named after Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. It is a competition for classical violinists, pianists, singers and cellists. It also used to hold international competitions for composers from 1953 to 2012.
Since its foundation it is considered one of the most challenging and prestigious competitions for instrumentalists. In 1957 the Queen Elisabeth Competition was one of the founding members of the World Federation of International Music Competitions.

History

, Belgian concert-violinist, wanted to set up an international music competition for young virtuosi showcasing their all-round skill, but died before he could do so. Queen Elisabeth, patroness of the arts and good friend of Ysaÿe, set up the competition in his memory in 1937. The prestige of Ysaÿe and Belgium's Royal Court assured that the first competition would draw great entrants.

1937–1950

The first two editions of the competition, in 1937 for violin and in 1938 for piano, were named after Ysaÿe. World War II and other impediments prevented the competition from taking place from 1940 to 1950.
19371938
ViolinX
PianoX

1951–1986

In 1951, the competition was renamed for its patroness, Queen Elisabeth, and has taken place under that name since then. Entrants are expected to learn a compulsory work written especially for the competition. Usually there is also a section where contestants are expected to perform a work by a Belgian composer. From 1963 to 1980, Marcel Poot of the Brussels Conservatory chaired the jury of the competition and wrote several commissioned works to mark the occasion, that were used as competition-required pieces.
The competition restarted with four-year cycles, starting with two consecutive years for violin and piano respectively, followed by a year for international composition competitions. The fourth year of each cycle had no competition. The years 1973 to 1974 were a transition to cycles with instrument competitions in even years, and the internationional composition competition in the year between the violin and the piano competitions, until the early 1980s when the cycles were re-arranged again.

1987–2006

With the competition for voice introduced in 1988 the four-year cycles were piano → voice → violin → year without performer competition. Before 2002 there were no composition competitions in even years.
1987198819891990199119921993199419951996
PianoXXX
Voice/singingXXX
ViolinXX
CompositionXXX
Composition for Belgian composersXXXXX

1997199819992000200120022003200420052006
PianoXX
Voice/singingXX
ViolinXXX
CompositionXXXXXX
Composition for Belgian composersXXXXX

2007–2014

From 2007 there were no longer years without competition for performers: with three disciplines, each of these returned in a three-year cycle.
There were competitions for composition in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012, each of these for the performance piece of the instrumentalist finale of the next year.
20072008200920102011201220132014
PianoXXX
VoiceXXX
ViolinXX
CompositionXXXX

2015 and beyond

From 2015 there are again four-year cycles, with, for the first time in 2017, a cello competition added after the year with the piano competition. The public composition competitions stopped. The 2020 competition was postponed to 2021.
2015201620172018201920202021
ViolinXX
PianoXX
CelloX
VoiceX

Patronage and prizes

The Queen Elisabeth Competition generates income from its own activities, from private patronage and from sponsoring. Resources are varied: part of the funding for the prizes laureates receive is provided by public authorities and patrons, corporate sponsors, donors contributions, ticket and programme sales, advertising in the programmes and the sale of recordings. The Competition also benefits from the volunteer assistance of families who open their homes to candidates for the duration of the competition.
Prizes for the laureates of the competition :
Competitions for performing musicians have 12 finalists performing as a soloist before a full symphonic orchestra. Originally all finalists became ranked laureates, later only the first six laureates were ranked. The first editions of the competition were dominated by candidates from the USSR: the 1937 violin competition was won by David Oistrakh and the next year Emil Gilels won the piano competition. The piano competition of 1952 and the violin competition of 1955 were the first to see winners from the United States. By the time of the 50th competition in 2012 an increasing number of Asian contestants reached the finals.
Year1st2nd3rd4th5th
1937 David Oistrakh Ricardo Odnoposoff Elizabeth Gilels Boris Goldstein Marina Kozolupova
1951 Leonid Kogan Mikhail Vayman Elise Cserfalvi Theo Olof Alexei Gorokhov
1955 Berl Senofsky Julian Sitkovetsky Pierre Doukan Francine Dorfeuille-Boussinot Victor Picaizen
1959 Jaime Laredo Albert Markov Joseph Silverstein Vladimir Malinin Boris Kouniev
1963 Aleksey Mikhlin Semyon Snitkovsky Arnold Steinhardt Zarius Shikhmurzayeva Charles Castleman
1967 Philippe Hirschhorn Stoïka Milanova Gidon Kremer Roman Nodel Hidetaro Suzuki
1971 Miriam Fried Andrey Korsakov Hamao Fujiwara Ana Chumachenco Edith Volckaert
1976 Mikhaïl Bezverkhny Irina Medvedeva Kang Dong-suk Grigori Zhislin Shizuka Ishikawa
1980 Peter Zazofsky Takashi Shimizu Ruriko Tsukahara Mihaela Martin
1985 Hu Nai-yuan Ik-hwan Bae Henry Raudales Hu Kun Mi Kyung Lee
1989 Vadim Repin Akiko Suwanai Evgeny Bushkov Erez Ofer Ulrike-Anima Mathé
1993 Yayoi Toda Liviu Prunaru Martin Beaver Natalia Prischepenko
1997 Nikolaj Znaider Albrecht Breuninger Kristóf Baráti Andrew Haveron Natsumi Tamai
2001 Baiba Skride Kam Ning Barnabás Kelemen Alina Pogostkin Feng Ning
2005 Sergey Khachatryan Sophia Jaffé Saeka Matsuyama Mikhail Ovrutsky
2009 Ray Chen Lorenzo Gatto Ilian Garnet Suyoen Kim Nikita Borisoglebsky
2012 Andrey Baranov Tatsuki Narita Hyun Su Shin Esther Yoo Tseng Yu-Chien
2015 Lim Ji-young Oleksii Semenenko William Hagen Tobias Feldmann Stephen Waarts
2019 Stella Chen Timothy Chooi Stephen Kim Shannon Lee Júlia Pusker

Year1st2nd3rd4th5th
1938 Emil Gilels Mary Johnstone Jakov Flier Lance Dossor :es:Nybia Mariño|Nibya Mariño Bellini
1952 Leon Fleisher Karl Engel Maria Tipo Frans Brouw Laurence Davis
1956 Vladimir Ashkenazy John Browning Andrzej Czajkowski Cécile Ousset Lazar Berman
1960 Malcolm Frager Ronald Turini Lee Luvisi Alice Mitchenko Gábor Gabos
1964 Evgeny Mogilevsky Nikolai Petrov Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden Anton Kuerti Richard Syracuse
1968 Valère Kamychov Jeffrey Siegel Semion Kroutchine
1972 Valery Afanassiev Jeffrey Swann Joseph Alfidi David Lively Svetlana Navasardyan
1975 Mikhaïl Faerman Stanislav Igolinsky Youri Egorov Larry Michael Graham Sergueï Iuchkevitch
1978 Abdel Rahman El Bacha Gregory Allen Brigitte Engerer Alan Weiss Douglas Finch
1983 Wolfgang Manz Boyan Vodenitcharov Daniel Blumenthal
1987 Andrei Nikolsky Akira Wakabayashi Rolf Plagge Johan Schmidt Ikuyo Nakamichi
1991 Frank Braley Stephen Prutsman Brian Ganz Hae-sun Paik Alexander Melnikov
1995 Laura Mikkola Giovanni Bellucci Yuliya Gorenman Jong Hwa Park
1999 Vitaly Samoshko Alexander Ghindin Ning An Shai Wosner
2003 Severin von Eckardstein Wen-Yu ShenUnawarded after Dong-Hyek Lim refused it Roberto Giordano Kazumasa Matsumoto
2007 Anna Vinnitskaya Plamena Mangova Francesco Piemontesi Ilya Rashkovsky Lim Hyo-Sun
2010 Denis Kozhukhin Evgeni Bozhanov Hannes Minnaar Yury Favorin Kim Tae-Hyung
2013 Boris Giltburg Rémi Geniet Mateusz Borowiak Stanislav Khristenko Zhang Zuo
2016 Henry Kramer Alexander Beyer Chi Ho Han Aljosa Jurinic

Year1st2nd3rd4th5th
1988 Aga Winska Jeanette Thompson Huub Claessens Jacob Will Yvonne Schiffelers
1992 Thierry Félix Reginaldo Pinheiro Wendy Hoffman Regina Nathan Cristina Gallardo-Domâs
1996 Stephen Salters Ana Camelia Ştefănescu Eleni Matos Mariana Zvetkova Ray Wade
2000 Marie-Nicole Lemieux Marius Brenciu Olga Pasichnyk Pierre-Yves Pruvot Lubana Al Quntar
2004 Iwona Sobotka Hélène Guilmette Teodora Gheorghiu
2008 Szabolcs Brickner Isabelle Druet Bernadetta Grabias Anna Kasyan Yury Haradzetski
2011 Haeran Hong Elena Galitskaya Anaïk Morel Konstantin Shushakov
2014 Sumi Hwang Jodie Devos Sarah Laulan Yu Shao Hera Hyesang Park
2018 Eva Zaïcik Ao Li Rocío Pérez Héloïse Mas


Year1st2nd3rd4th5th
2017 Victor Julien-Laferrière Yuya Okamoto Aurélien Pascal Ivan Karizna

Composers

The first international Queen Elisabeth Competition for composition was held in 1953. Composition competitions had less laureates or finalists, with usually only the winners who see their winning piece performed in the final of the competitions for instrumentalists receiving broad media attention.
YearCategory1stWork
1953Composition for symphony orchestra Serenade
1957Composition for symphony orchestra Concerto per orchestra
1957Composition for chamber orchestra Michał SpisakConcerto giocoso
1961Composition for symphony orchestra Sinfonia burlesca
1961Composition for chamber orchestra Concerto per ochestra da camera n. 3
1965Composition for symphony orchestra Rudolf BrucciSynfonia lesta
1965Composition for violin and orchestra Wilhelm Georg BergerConcert
1969Composition for symphony orchestra Symphonie en deux mouvements
1969Composition for piano and orchestra Concerto for piano
1977Composition for symphony orchestra Hiro FujikakeRope Crest
1977Composition for string quartet Akira NishimuraHeterophony
1982Composition for symphony orchestra Five Litanies for Orchestra
1991Composition Tristan-Patrice ChallulauNe la città dolente
1993Composition Zodiac
1995Composition John WeeksRequiescat
1997Composition Hendrik HofmeyrRaptus
1999Composition Tears of Ludovico
2001Composition Søren Nils EichbergQilaatersorneq
2002Composition Ian MunroPiano Concerto Dreams
2004Composition Javier Torres MaldonadoObscuro Etiamtum Lumine
2006Composition Miguel Gálvez-TaroncherLa luna y la muerte
2008Composition Agens
2009Composition Target
2011Composition Concerto pour violon et orchestre
2012Composition Michel PetrossianIn the wake of Ea pour piano et orchestre

Media coverage and prizes awarded by audiences

The competition was covered on the Belgian radio from its first edition, the press writing about contestants and their performances. Broadcasting via television expanded in the 1960s. French-language and Dutch-language Belgian broadcasting organizations started to award prizes based on the preferences of their audiences from 1975 and 1991 respectively. Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Pierre-Alain Volondat, Severin von Eckardstein and Denis Kozhukhin were among the few contestants that were as convincing to the competition jury as to the general audience. Recorded performances were commercialised from 1967. In the 21st century recordings of the competitors' performances were streamed live on the internet and/or made available as video or audio downloads, followed by social media discussions.