2025 Piano Competition: final (Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels)
From Monday 26 to Saturday 31 May, at 8.15pm
The finalists are:
• Rachel Breen
• Valère Burnon
• Arthur Hinnewinkel
• Wataru Hisasue
• Mirabelle Kajenjeri
• Masaya Kamei
• Shiori Kuwahara
• Nikola Meeuwsen
• Nathalia Milstein
• Jiaxin Min
• Sergey Tanin
• Yuki Yoshimi
Discover their profiles on our website.
Programme of the final
The final will take place at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts, from Monday 26 to Saturday 31 May. Each evening, two finalists will perform with the Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by Kazushi Ono.
You will find the schedule of the final (pdf) and the finalists’ programme on our website.
The finalists will each perform a concerto of their own choice and the unpublished imposed work, Music for the Heart, especially written by Kris Defoort for the final of this piano session (world première on Monday 26 May 2025).
The candidates receive the score once they arrive at the Music Chapel. They only have one week to study it, without outside help.
A few words about Kris Defoort’s work:
Can life itself, the sometimes so intense reality of the now, be captured in music? Kris Defoort does this with his piano concerto Music for the Heart. Memories, images, scents, encounters, but also inspiration from films, books, concerts – in short, the full richness of the arts – form the breeding ground for a well-wrought composition, beating like a vital, pounding heart that is at the same time oh so vulnerable. Music for the Heart is a work that came about intuitively. Seeping in from nothingness, starting from silence, improvisation forms the very first seed. Playing with rhythmic timbres, meaning gradually appears, a musical core that Defoort deepens, analyses and allows to grow in endless variations day after day. Like a living, transforming organism, the music develops into a balanced composition – a piano concerto. From the heart of this concerto, a character speaks. The HEART, as the central musical motif, represents that which drives the blood in our mortal bodies, but also, on a more spiritual level, that which connects us to other hearts, other beings, the Earth itself.
The ranking of the laureates will take place on Saturday 31 May after the performance of the last finalist, around midnight. The proclamation is freely accessible.
Jury members
While the composition of the jury may vary from one round to another, the members of the jury attend the whole of the round that they have been appointed to judge. In the final, the members are: Gilles Ledure (Chairman), Imogen Cooper, François-Frederic Guy, Daejin Kim, Momo Kodama, Denis Kozhukhin, Steven Osborne, Jorge Luis Prats, Laura Mikkola, Anne Queffélec, Tamara Stefanovich, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Anna Vinnitskaya, Boyan Vodenitcharov and Lilya Zilberstein.
Waiting list
The final and the laureates’ concerts of the Piano Competition at the Centre for Fine Arts are completely sold out. The overwhelming interest shows just how much this edition resonates with the public. Those who would still like to attend can register for the waiting list at Bozar – that way, you will be the first to know if a ticket becomes available: www.bozar.be.
Broadcasts
Thanks to the RTBF and the VRT the performances are broadcast live and on demand on our website, and on La Trois, VRT CANVAS, Musiq3, Klara, Auvio and VRT MAX.
Schedule of the broadcasts (pdf)
About the Queen Elisabeth Competition
One of the most demanding and also one of the most widely publicised international competitions, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, ever since its creation in 1937, has established itself as a springboard for young violinists, pianists, singers, and cellists on the threshold of an international career. The Competition aims, above all, to serve as an intermediary between those young virtuosos and the world’s great musical venues. Steadfastly committed to the project initiated by Eugène Ysaÿe and Queen Elisabeth, the Queen Elisabeth Competition seeks to discover complete artists; it owes its reputation to a prestigious jury, strict rules, and unparalleled media coverage, as well as to the friendly and enthusiastic hospitality offered by an entire country and its Royal Family. For the finalists, one of the highlights of the Competition is their stay at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, which offers them an opportunity to spend a whole week studying a new work to be performed with an orchestra, without any external assistance.