Arie Van Lysebeth was the President of the Jury of the Queen Elisabeth Competition from 1996 to 2018. He took up the violin at the age of four. He completed his higher education at the Brussels Conservatory in music theory, bassoon, chamber music, and orchestral conducting. Following a competition, he was appointed bassoon soloist of the Belgian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. Two years later, he came joint first in the Prague International Bassoon Contest. He also studied conducting under Bruno Maderna in Salzburg and under Pierre Boulez in Switzerland. Starting in 1970, he conducted the Flemish Chamber Orchestra, both in Belgium and abroad. As a guest conductor, he has appeared with the major Belgian orchestras as well as with symphony orchestras in the United States of America, Argentina, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Germany. He has performed with many famous soloists, including Igor Oistrakh, José Van Dam, Murray Perahia, and Augustin Dumay. From 1995 to 2004 he was the regular conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Brussels Conservatory, where he taught chamber music for many years (1970-1994) and served as director (1994-2003). From 2004 to 2014, he was the artistic director of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.

Pierre Amoyal won First Prize in the violin at the Paris Conservatory at the age of 12. At 17 he moved to study in Los Angeles under Jascha Heifetz, with whom he played chamber music and made his first recordings. Five years later he was playing all over Europe and in Japan, performing with the most prestigious orchestras and the greatest conductors (including P. Boulez, S. Ozawa, C. Dutoit, G. Herbig, L. Maazel, K. Sanderling, and M.W. Chung). His many recordings for Decca have included Fauré’s sonatas, the Chausson Concert, and the Franck sonata, as well as the Dutilleux, Saint-Saëns, and Respighi concertos. Appointed a professor at the Conservatoire National in Paris at a very young age, he has also taught at the Lausanne Conservatory, Haute École de Musique, where he founded the Camerata de Lausanne in 2002, recently renamed CameratAmoyal. Made up of 14 talented young musicians from all over the world, the Camerata has recorded a number of CDs. Pierre Amoyal teaches as well at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and a Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite. In 2006 he received the Prix de la Ville de Lausanne. Pierre Amoyal owns one of the world’s most celebrated violins, the 1717 ‘Kochansky’ Stradivarius, which was miraculously found in 1991 after being stolen in 1987.

Born into an artistic family in Paris, Patrice Fontanarosa showed his great talent at an early age as he won a number of international awards. For a number of years he was leader (concertmaster) of the Orchestre national de France, in which capacity he worked with great conductors such as L. Maazel, S. Ozawa, L. Bernstein, G. Solti, C. Abbado, and K. Böhm. He has also been music director of the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie and leader of the I Virtuosi di Roma orchestra. Currently artistic adviser to the Orchestre Pasdeloup, he has taught at the CNSM in Paris and runs an advanced class at the Schola Cantorum. Convinced that music has something to offer everybody, he has tackled the great violin repertoire in a great variety of settings as he seeks to reveal the wealth and emotional power of his artistry to as wide an audience as possible. In 1995 he won a Victoire de la Musique award for his recording of Le Violon de l’Opéra for EMI. He won the award again in 1997 for his recording with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, conducted by Georges Prêtre, of the violin concerto dedicated to him by Marcel Landowski. Other distinctions he has been awarded include : Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Médaille Vermeille de la Ville de Paris, Officier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, the British violinist Daniel Hope has received four Grammy nominations and has won five ECHO Klassik Prizes. Among the conductors with whom he has worked are H. Graf, D. Harding, K. Masur, K. Nagano, R. Norrington, S. Oramo, M. Rostropovich, and C. Thielemann. He appears regularly with major orchestras and has performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. His musical mentors were Zakhar Bron, with whom he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and Yehudi Menuhin, with whom he had a particularly close artistic relationship that began when he was eleven. From 2002 to 2008 he was the youngest member of the Beaux Arts Trio. He has also played with, among others, T. Adès, Y. Bashmet, P. Entremont, L. Harrell, K. and M. Labèque, J. Laredo, M. Padmore, and M. Pressler. He has conducted chamber orchestras such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Salzburg, and Concerto Köln. He is interested in contemporary music and has enjoyed close contact with composers such as H.K. Gruber, S. Gubaidulina, G. Kurtág, K. Penderecki, A. S chnittke, T. Takemitsu, and M.-A. Turnage. He is the artistic director of the Savannah Music Festival and of the Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival. Away from the concert stage, he has written books as well as scripts for a variety of multidisciplinary and poetry projects.

Since winning the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1985, the violinist Hu Nai-Yuan has performed in the world’s leading concert halls, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Avery Fisher Hall in New York, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and other major venues in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. He has played as a soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, among others, under conductors such as George Cleve, Adam Fischer, Leon Fleisher, Gunther Herbig, Gerard Schwarz, and Maxim Shostakovich. He has recorded with the Royal Philharmonic (London) and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and has toured Germany with the National Orchestra of Belgium. He is music director of Taiwan Connection, a music festival he founded in his homeland in 2004. A chamber music enthusiast, he has collaborated with musicians such as Fou Ts’ong, Martha Argerich, and Misha Maisky at the Beijing Music Festival and Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax at the Taipei International Music Festival. Hu Nai-Yuan has made recordings for EMI, Delos, Koch, and Sunrise.

Acclaimed by specialist critics, Dong-Suk Kang’s fluid technique and perfect bowing have established him as one of the greatest violinists of our time. He has played with the most prestigious orchestras worldwide, under renowned conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Paavo Järvi, Yehudi Menuhin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Myung-Whun Chung, Leonard Slatkin, Rudolf Barshai, Mariss Jansons, Roger Norrington, Paavo Berglund, and Evgeny Svetlanov. His recordings have received glowing reviews and have won the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros and the Grand Prix de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque. They have also been nominated for the Gramophone Award. Dong-Suk Kang teaches at Yonsei University. He is the artistic director of the Seoul Spring Festival and MusicAlp festival in France. He is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.

The celebrated violinist and teacher Kim Nam Yun has served on the juries of numerous prestigious competitions, including the Taipei International Competition, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition, the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover, and the Tchaikovsky Competition. Her career took off when she won First Prize in the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition after studying at the Juilliard School of Music under Ivan Galamian and Felix Galimir. As a promising young soloist, she was invited to perform at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Kennedy Center, and Sydney Opera House, as well as in other major concert halls in Europe and Asia. She has performed with major orchestras throughout the world, including the St Petersburg Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Zagreb Radio Symphony, and many others. She has been invited to many famous music schools and festivals and is currently professor of violin at the Korea National University of Arts.

Mihaela Martin was born in Romania and has won many prizes at international competitions. After winning 2nd Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition at the age of 19, she also distinguished herself at the Montreal, Sion, and Queen Elisabeth competitions. Her 1st Prize at the Indianapolis Competition opened the way to a distinguished international career. Her debut at Carnegie Hall was enthusiastically received. Since then, Mihaela Martin has made a name for herself as a soloist with a vast repertoire and has been the guest of many orchestras. She has performed with the BBC Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Salzburg Mozarteum, and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester under such conductors as K. Masur, N. Harnoncourt, C. Dutoit, and N. Järvi. She also regularly performs at chamber music festivals with a variety of partners, including M. Argerich, Y. Bashmet, E. Leonskaya, N. Imai, L. Fleisher, and M. Pressler. In 2003 Mihaela Martin set up the Michelangelo String Quartet. A regular jury member at the Indianapolis, Enescu, and Tchaikovsky competitions, she teaches at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, the Kronberg Academy and the Barenboim-Said Akademie of Berlin, and also was a professor at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva.

Grammy-award winning Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator. She is celebrated worldwide as one of the most outstanding violinists of our time. Midori appears with the world’s leading orchestras, including the London, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras; the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics; the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; and Festival Strings Lucerne. She has collaborated with such outstanding musicians as Claudio Abbado, Emanuel Ax, Leonard Bernstein, Constantinos Carydis, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Yo-Yo Ma, Susanna Mälkki and Zubin Mehta. Deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several non-profit organizations: Midori & Friends, Partners in Performance, the Orchestra Residencies Program and Music Sharing. She was appointed a Messenger of Peace by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 2007. Midori is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is a distinguished visiting artist at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. She is the newly appointed Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings program.

Natalia Prischepenko was born into a family of musicians in Siberia. At the age of seven, she began to learn the violin, taught by her mother, who is still her closest adviser. In 1989, she moved to the Musikhochschule in Lübeck, where she finished her studies under David Geringas. She won the Paganini Competition in 1990 and the Tokyo Violin Competition in 1992. The following year, she was a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Encounters with artists such as W. Levin, A. Brendel, and the members of the Juilliard String Quartet, the Alban Berg Quartett, and the Emerson Quartet introduced Natalia Prischepenko to the world of chamber music. From 1994 to 2012, she was a member of the renowned Artemis Quartet, with which she won the ARD and Paolo Borciani competitions and made recordings of the Beethoven quartets that won the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros. She has also had fruitful contact with composers such as G. Kurtág, J. Widmann, L. Nono, and G. Ligeti and with artists such as S. Meyer, E. Leonskaja, J. Banse, L.O. Andsnes, T. Mørk, T. Kakuska, and V. Erben. A professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, she regularly gives masterclasses. She has made many recordings for Virgin Classics/EMI, for which she has received awards such as the Gramophone Award, the Diapason d’Or, and the ECHO Klassik.

A prizewinner at three of the most prestigious international violin competitions - the Tchaikovsky in Moscow, the Queen Elisabeth, and the Indianapolis - Marco Rizzi was early recognised as one of the most outstanding young violinists of his generation and was awarded the Europäischer Musikförderpreis on the recommendation of Claudio Abbado. Marco Rizzi is regarded as one of Italy’s finest musicians. He regularly appears in leading concert halls throughout Europe, working with renowned orchestras and eminent conductors. Due to his interest in unusual repertoire, he has frequently performed unknown masterpieces, as well as several 20th-century Italian sonatas and concertos that have been greatly appreciated by music-lovers and critics. Since 1999, Marco Rizzi has dedicated himself more and more intensively to teaching ; he leads an international class at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold. In October 2008, he was appointed to the Hochschule für Musik in Mannheim and since September 2007 he has also been a professor at the celebrated Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. His students have been prizewinners in major international competitions. He also regularly serves as a juror in some of the most prestigious violin competitions, such as the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover and the Paganini Violin Competition (Genoa). Marco Rizzi plays the ‘Baron Knoop’ 1743 violin by Pietro Guarneri, owned by the foundation ‘Il Canale’ ONLUS.

Suwanai Akiko studied at the Toho Gakuen School with Toshiya Eto, at Columbia University and the Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay and Cho-Liang Lin, and at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin with Uwe-Martin Haiberg. A laureate of the Paganini and Japan international competitions, she won the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990 and was second laureate in the 1989 Queen Elisabeth Competition. Her international career has seen her perform recently with the Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. This season she toured with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Sir Antonio Pappano), the Philadelphia Orchestra (Yannick Nézet- Séguin), and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Paavo Järvi). She has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Sakari Oramo, Seiji Ozawa and Esa-Pekka Salonen among others. Her extensive discography on Universal has garnered much critical acclaim. She is also an Artistic Director of the International Music Festival NIPPON, performs on the Stradivarius ‘Dolphin’ violin from 1714, which has been kindly loaned to her by the Nippon Music Foundation.

Gilbert Varga, son of the celebrated Hungarian violinist Tibor Varga, studied under three very different and distinctive maestros : Franco Ferrara, Sergiu Celibidache, and Charles Bruck. A commanding and authoritative figure on the podium, he is renowned for his elegant baton technique, and has held positions with and guest-conducted many of the major orchestras throughout the world. In North America, he regularly conducts the Houston Symphony, the St Louis Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, and the Nashville Symphony ; this season sees him make his debut with the Oregon Symphony and the orchestra of the Colburn Conservatory of Music (Los Angeles). He works frequently with Europe’s leading orchestras, in Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Cologne, Madrid, Budapest, Brussels, and Glasgow and this year makes his debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2013, Varga was appointed Principal Conductor of the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. In the earlier part of his conducting career Varga concentrated on work with chamber orchestras, and in particular the Tibor Varga Chamber Orchestra. From 2001 to 2012 he conducted often the final round of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Varga’s discography includes recordings on various labels, including ASV, Koch International, and Claves Records. His latest recording, released in January 2011, of concertos by Ravel and Prokofiev with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Anna Vinnitskaya on Naïve Records was given five stars by BBC Music Magazine.