Count Eugène Traey (1915-2006) was born in Amsterdam of Belgian parents and studied music at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Antwerp, where his piano teacher was Emmanuel Durlet. He went on to study in Paris under Robert Casadesus and in Germany under Karl Leimer and Walter Gieseking. After this international training as a pianist, Eugène Traey pursued a career both as a concert performer and a teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, of which he was the director until 1980. He gave recitals, performed with orchestras and took part in chamber music recitals with Arthur Grumiaux and Jean Laurent, as well as performing piano duos with Frédéric Gevers. He was the founder of the deSingel concert hall in Antwerp and was a regular member of juries at international competitions (Moscow, Warsaw, Munich and Tokyo, among others). From 1982 until 1995 Eugène Traey presided over the jury of the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

Pierre Bartholomée began studying the piano at the age of six. He is a laureate of the Royal Brussels Conservatory, where his piano teacher was André Dumortier. In Italy he followed a series of Beethoven piano performance classes given by Wilhelm Kempff.

He is, with Henri Pousseur, a founder of the Ensemble Musique Nouvelle and of the Centre de Recherches et de Création Musicales de Wallonie. After embarking on a career as pianist that enabled him to give recitals, perform with orchestra and play chamber music in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and Spain, he took the Ensemble Musique Nouvelle not only to the main cities of Belgium but also to many European festivals (Avignon, Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Madrid, Belgrade, Zagreb), while being a producer for the musical services of Belgian television (RTBF). He subsequently devoted thirty years of his career to orchestral conducting, conducting many Belgian, Dutch, French, Italian, Swiss, Austrian, German, Norwegian, Finnish, Spanish and American orchestras, and for twenty-two seasons he directed the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège.

Invited all over Europe, America and Japan to perform a very broad repertory, Pierre Bartholomée has collaborated with soloists such as Arthur Grumiaux, Yehudi Menuhin, Leonid Kogan, Frank-Peter Zimmerman, Boris Belkin, Nikita Magaloff, Yvonne Loriod, Elisabeth Leonskaya, Shura Cherkasky, Martha Argerich, Christian Zacharias, Hélène Grimaud, Jessye Norman, Barbara Hendricks, Montserrat Caballé, José Van Dam, Narciso Yepes, Heinrich Schiff, Janos Starker, Paul Tortelier and made many radio and discographic recordings, awarded with among others a Prix Charles Cros, a Victoire de la Musique, a Koussevitzky Prize and two Cecilia Prizes.

His personal catalogue includes two operas, two oratorios, six works for large orchestra, chamber music, vocal music, instrumental pieces and electronic music. Most of these works have been performed, some in the great international centres for music (Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Washington, Montreal, Quebec, Geneva, etc.). The oratorio Ludus Sapientiae, composed to a text by François Jongen on the occasion of the 575th anniversary of the foundation of the University of Louvain, was given its first performance in 2001 in the Grande Aula of Louvain-la-Neuve, conducted by Jordi Savall, and was also performed in Brussels on 10 June 2007 conducted by Jean Tubéry.

La Monnaie has commissioned three works from him, inspired by Henry Bauchau: Le Rêve de Diotime, a dramatic scene for soprano and chamber orchestra, first performed in 2000 and revived in 2002, and Œdipe sur la route, an opera in four acts, first staged in 2003 in a performance conducted by Daniele Callegari with stage direction by Philippe Sireuil, and with José Van Dam in the title role. In 2008 his opera La Lumière Antigone with a libretto by Henry Bauchau was world premiered.

Having for several years taught musical analysis at the Royal Brussels Conservatory, Pierre Bartholomée was composer in residence at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) where he was guest professor and where he set up and for three years ran an inter-faculty composition workshop. One of his recent works, Fragments des Belles Heures, a song cycle for soprano and small instrumental ensemble, with texts by Liliane Wouters, was premiered in Brussels at the instigation of the UCL.

His 13 Bagatelles for piano and his String Quartet were given first performances in Brussels in 2004. The String Quartet subsequently featured in the programmes of several concerts in Germany. His Sonata for viola and piano was performed several times in 2004, Pentacle for eight instruments, commissioned by the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, was premiered in Switzerland in 2005 and All days are nights (two visions of Shakespeare’s Sonnet XLII), for female voice, flute, cello and piano, was incorporated into a music-poetry production and was published in a CD/book by Éditions Esperluète.

In 2006 a Passacaglia for marimba and live electronics, a commission from the Centre de Recherches et de Formation Musicales de Wallonie, was first performed in Liège and later performed in Brussels, at the Ars Musica Festival, further performances of 13 Bagatelles, Fragments des Belles Heures and of the String Quartet, the premiere in Brussels of Histoire d’un caillou, three songs for soprano and piano to a short poem by Henry Bauchau, the composition of 7 x 7 for 7 concertante instrumentalists, a commission from Ars Musica (the first performance taking place in March 2007), and the completion of two large-scale works, a Requiem, first performed in Brussels in 2007 and Oraisons for cello was premiered in Paris in 2007.

Commissioned by the city of Maastricht, La Rupture des Falaises was created in 2008 for the Ensemble 88. In 2009 Ars Musica Festival has featered Face à face. For its 50th anniversary in 2010, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège commissioned and performed Symphonie. In 2011 he has composed the string quartet Envol et mort d’un papillon and a score for the National Orchestra of Belgium to accompany a silent film by Joris Ivens. A new production of La Lumière Antigone will take place in Switzerland in 2012.

The record labels Cypres, Igloo and Fuga Libera have issued recordings of most of Pierre Bartholomée’s symphonic works as well as a large part of his chamber music output. Several of his discs have won many awards from the international musical press (Choc from Le Monde de la Musique, Joker from Crescendo, etc.).

Pierre Bartholomée is a member of the fine arts division of the Royal Belgian Academy. He has on several occasions presided the jury of the Antonio Pedrotti International Orchestral Conducting Competition in Trento (Italy) and has been a member of juries for the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Gaudeamus Competition (Hilversum), the Queen Marie-José Composition Competition (Geneva), the Composition Competition of the International Besançon Festival, the Geneva International Piano Competition and the International Saxophone Competition of Dinant.

His works are published by Universal (Vienna), Salabert and Jobert (Paris), Cebedem (Brussels) and Quindicesima (Valenciennes).

Editor Mardaga and the Conseil de la Musique de la Communauté française have dedicated a book by Robert Wangermée to him : Pierre Bartholomée - parcours d’un musicien.

Dutch-born Belgian composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, and piano works; however, Frédéric Devreese is best known for his many memorable film scores and for his conducting. He received his first musical training from his father and then studied in Brussels (composition with Marcel Poot and conducting with René Defossez). He went on to study composition at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome and conducting at the Wiener Staatsakademie. At the age of nineteen, he received the Prize of the Town of Ostend for his Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1983, his Piano Concerto No. 4 was the compulsory work for the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Devreese has received several national and international awards, including the Prix Italia for his TV opera Willem van Saeftinghe, the Georges Delerue Award, the Plateau Music Award (twice) for his film music, and the Klara-Carrièreprijs (2006). As a conductor, he has made a number of recordings for the Naxos Anthology of Flemish Music, for which he was nominated Cultural Ambassador of Flanders in 1996-97.

Launched very early onto the international stage, Clemens Quatacker first studied with his father and then with J. DeLoof, H. Gadeyne and Y. Menuhin. After winning numerous prizes, among them the Prix Vieuxtemps in Verviers and in 1955 the 10th prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, he was invited to undertake concert tours in Europe, Africa, Mexico, Canada, Haiti, Uruguay, Brazil, ... He had many contacts with David Oistrakh, who had a high opinion of his young talent. In 1967 he founded the string quartet that bore his name, an ensemble that found rapid success. His group was regularly asked to perform at festivals, national and international. Clemens Quatacker has taught the violin at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and has an honourary chair at the Brussels Conservatory.

Jean-Marie Simonis (1931) is a laureate of the Brussel's Royal Academy of Music, where he got several distinctions. he won the Prize of Rome as well as several composition prizes, among which the SABAM Prize for the whole of his works.

His Cantilène (Cantilena) for violin and orchestra was the imposed concerto for the final round at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1985. In 1975 and in 1978, his Evocations and his Notturno were already chosen for the semi-finals.

Honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Music of Brussel's, Jean-Marie Simonis has taught at the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel ans he is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium since 1985.

He has composed a lot of symphonic, vocal and instrumental works. Most of his works have been published and a dozen have been recorded on plates or CD's.