The Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, a founding member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions (1957) has been, since its foundation, considered the world over to be one of the most prestigious and most difficult. It is devoted to violin (since 1937), piano (since 1938), to composition (since 1953) and to singing (since 1988). Held in Brussels, the Competition is named after Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
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Eugène Ysaÿe, Belgian concert-violinist, had 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 (King Albert and Queen Elisabeth were admired heroes of the First World War) assured that the first competition would draw great entrants.
The Soviet school was the resounding winner in 1937 as David Oistrakh took first prize. In 1938, the competition was dedicated to piano; Emil Gilels won, and again, the Soviet school was victorious.
The competition did not resume until 1951; World War II and several royal scandals prevented the competition from taking place. 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. (The work is picked during the composition 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 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.
| Year | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938 | Emil Gilels | Mary Johnstone (Moura Lympany) | Jakov Flier | Lance Dossor | Nivea Marino-Bellini |
| 1952 | Leon Fleisher | Karl Engel | Maria Tipo | Frans Brouw | Lawrence 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 | Ekaterina Novitskaya | Valère Kamychov | Jeffrey Siegel | Semion Kroutchine | André De Groote |
| 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 | Pierre-Alain Volondat | Wolfgang Manz | Boyan Vodenitcharov | Daniel Blumenthal | Eliane Rodrigues |
| 1987 | Andrei Nikolsky | Akira Wakabayashi | Rolf Plagge | Johan Schmidt | Ikuyo Nakamichi |
| 1991 | Frank Braley | Stephen Prutsman | Brian Ganz | Hae-sun Paik | Alexander Melnikov |
| 1995 | Markus Groh | Laura Mikkola | Giovanni Bellucci | Yuliya Gorenman | Jong Hwa Park |
| 1999 | Vitaly Samoshko | Alexander Ghindin | Ning An | Shai Wosner | Roberto Cominati |
| 2003 | Severin von Eckardstein | Wen-Yu Shen | Dong-Hyek Lim, (he refused the 3rd prize and no 3rd prize was awarded) | 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 |
| Year | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | David Oistrakh | Ricardo Odnoposoff | Elizabeth Gilels | Boris Goldstein | Marina Kozolupova |
| 1951 | Leonid Kogan | Mikhail Vayman | Elise Cserfalvi | Theo Olof | Alexei Gorokov |
| 1955 | Berl Senofsky | Julian Sitkovetsky | Pierre Doukan | Francine Dorfeuille-Boussinot | Victor Picaizen |
| 1959 | Jaime Laredo | Albert Markov | Joseph Silverstein | Vladimir Malinine | Boris Kouniev |
| 1963 | Alexei Mikhlin | Semyon Snitkovsky | Arnold Steinhardt | Zarius Shikhmurzayeva | Charles Castleman |
| 1967 | Philippe Hirschhorn | Stoïka Milanova | Gidon Kremer | Roman Nodel | Hidetaro Suzuki |
| 1971 | Miriam Fried | Andreï Korsakov | Hamao Fujiwara | Ana Chumachenco de Lysy | Edith Volckaert |
| 1976 | Mikhaïl Bezverkhny | Irina Medvedeva | Dong-Suk Kang | Grigory Jisline | Shizuka Ishikawa |
| 1980 | Yuzuko Horigome | 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 | Keng-Yuen Tseng | 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 | Yossif Ivanov | Sophia Jaffé | Saeka Matsuyama | Mikhail Ovrutsky |
| 2009 | Ray Chen | Lorenzo Gatto | Ilian Garnet | Suyoen Kim | Nikita Borisoglebsky |
| Year | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 Stefanescu | 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 | Shadi Torbey | Teodora Gheorghiu | Diana Axentii |
| 2008 | Szabolcs Brickner | Isabelle Druet | Bernadetta Grabias | Anna Kasyan | Yury Haradzetski |
| 2011 | Haeran Hong | Thomas Blondelle | Elena Galitskaya | Anaïk Morel | Konstantin Shushakov |
| Year | 1st | Work |
|---|---|---|
| 1953 | Michał Spisak | Serenade voor orkest |
| 1957 | Orazio Fiume | Concerto for orchestra |
| 1960 | Marcel Poot | Sinfonia burlesca |
| 1963 | Léon Jongen | |
| 1982 | John Weeks | Five Litanies for Orchestra |
| 1989 | André Laporte | Fantasia con tema reale |
| 1991 | Tristan-Patrice Challulau[1] | Ne la città dolente |
| 1993 | Piet Swerts | Zodiac |
| 1995 | John Weeks | Requiescat |
| 1997 | Hendrik Hofmeyr | Raptus |
| 1999 | Uljas Voitto Pulkkis | Tears of Ludovico |
| 2001 | / Søren Nils Eichberg | Qilaatersorneq |
| 2003 | Ian Munro | Piano Concerto Dreams |
| 2005 | Javier Torres Maldonado | Obscuro Etiamtum Lumine |
| 2006 | Miguel Gálvez-Taroncher | La luna y la muerte |
| 2009 | Cho Eun-Hwa | Agens |
| 2010 | Jeon Minje | Target |
First prize: International Queen Elisabeth Grand Prize - HM Queen Fabiola Prize
20,000 euro, numerous concerts, recording on CD, loan of the 'Huggins' Stradivarius violin from the Nippon Music Foundation for a period of three years
Second Prize: Belgian Federal Government Prize
17,500 euro, concerts, recording on CD
Third Prize: Count de Launoit Prize
15,000 euro, concerts
Fourth Prize: Prize awarded alternately by each of the communities of Belgium
10,000 euro, concerts
Fifth Prize: Brussels Capital Region Prize
8,000 euro, concerts
Sixth Prize: City of Brussels Prize
7,000 euro, concerts