Ettore Pagano wins the 2026 Cello Competition! The International Queen Elisabeth Grand Prize - Queen Mathilde Prize receives € 25,000 and numerous concerts in Belgium and abroad. Discover the list of prizewinners below:
INTERNATIONAL QUEEN ELISABETH GRAND PRIZE : €25.000
First Prize - Queen Mathilde Prize
Thanks to the Pau Casals Foundation, Ettore Pagano will also receive the Goffriller “Casals” cello on loan for a period of four years.
BELGIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PRIZE : €20.000
Second Prize, awarded by the Belgian Science Policy
COUNT DE LAUNOIT PRIZE : €17.000
Third Prize
PRIZE OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE BELGIAN COMMUNITIES : €12.500
Fourth Prize, this year awarded by the Government of the French Community
BRUSSELS-CAPITAL REGION PRIZE : €10.000
Fifth Prize
CITY OF BRUSSELS PRIZE : €8.000
Sixth Prize
WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE NATIONAL LOTTERY
each of the six unranked laureates receive €4.000 :
Andrew Ilhoon Byun
Clara Dietlin
Lionel Martin
Krzysztof Michalski
Dilshod Narzillaev
Ivan Sendetsky
Audience awards
Álvaro Lozano Cames wins the RTBF Musiq3 Prize and Tae-Yeon Kim the Klara Prize, both worth € 2.500.
Laureates' concerts
You can continue to enjoy their performances on our website, but for those who want to hear them perform live, the laureates have many concerts and recitals in store in the coming weeks.
CD "Cello 2026"
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to immerse yourself in the unique live recordings of the 2026 Cello Competition. The CD box set contains the best memories of this year's cello session and will be available in all record stores as from Saturday 6 June. You can also pre-order it in our webshop. If you buy the box set before Sunday 31 May midnight in the webshop, you pay no shipping costs and you will receive a new bonus CD featuring highlights from the different disciplines of the Competition since 1951, including previously unedited recordings, and no shipping costs will be charged.
