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.

The international career of Augustin Dumay began in 1980 when Herbert von Karajan invited him to perform as a soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Since then, he has regularly performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the BRSO, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, conducted by I. Fischer, D. Harding, R. Ticciati, C. Dutoit, D. Zinman, S. Ozawa, Y. Temirkanov. He has been the music director of the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra in Osaka (Japan) since 2011 and is master in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. His discography includes more than forty CDs for Warner, Deutsche Grammophon and Onyx, which have won many international awards. His recording of the Beethoven sonatas with Maria João Pires is regarded by critics as a major achievement. His forthcoming recordings will be of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas and partitas, and of concerti by Berg, Bartok and Stravinsky with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Augustin Dumay plays a Guarnerius del Gesù from 1743 (ex-Kogan).

Tuomas Haapanen studied the violin at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. After his debut in 1948 he pursued his studies in Paris with Léon Nauwinck and René Benedetti. In addition to a fine career as soloist and chamber musician, he has also been appointed concert master for the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra. In 1962 he was appointed head violin teacher at the Turku Conservatory, and in 1978 he became violin professor at the Sibelius Academy; where, from 1987 to 1990, he also acted as principal. He has held master classes in Europe, America and Japan, and many of his students have won prizes in international competitions. Tuomas Haapanen acted as the chairman of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition from 1981 to 2001, and has regularly been invited to serve as member of the jury in most major violin competitions. In 1999 he received the Finnish State Music Prize.

Koichiro Harada studied the violin, chamber music, and orchestral conducting at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo and at the Juilliard School under Hideo Saito, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Dorothy DeLay, and Ivan Galamian. In 1969, he founded the Tokyo String Quartet, of which he was first violin for twelve years. He later taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and at the Aspen Music Festival. In 1983, Koichiro Harada returned to Tokyo and founded a number of other chamber music ensembles, including NADA and the Mito Quartet. He has also become a well-known orchestral conductor and works regularly with ensembles such as the New Japan Philharmonic, the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In parallel with his concert activities, Koichiro Harada teaches at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo and serves regularly on the juries of a number of international competitions, including the Queen Elisabeth Competition and the Wieniawski and Paganini competitions. In 2005, he chaired the jury of the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in Paris.

For 50 years, Lewis Kaplan has divided his career between performing and teaching. As a performer, he has premiered over a hundred works as soloist or at the head of the Aeolian Chamber Players, an ensemble he founded in 1961. He has also appeared as conductor or violin soloist with the likes of Jaime Laredo, Szymon Goldberg, Ruggiero Ricci, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Rudolf Firkusny, and Horacio Gutierrez. He has recorded for CBS Masterworks, CRI, Folkways, and Odyssey Records. Lewis Kaplan has devoted much of his time to teaching, and more particularly to teaching the technique of his mentor Ivan Galamian. For 20 years he was a professor at the Mozarteum’s Sommerakademie (1987-2007). He teaches at the Juilliard School, from which he graduated in violin and conducting, at Mannes College, and at the Bowdoin Festival, of which he is the founder and current director. Since 1999, he is a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music in London. He is also regularly invited to give master classes by the most renowned conservatories and has served on the jury of numerous international competitions, including the Fritz Kreisler (Vienna), Mozart (Salzburg), and Concert Artist Guild (New York) competitions. He has been awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) and the William Schuman Scholar’s Chair at The Juilliard School in 2011.

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.

Born in 1947 in Uzhgorod in the former USSR, Mikhail Kopelman was a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory under Yuri Jankelevich and Maya Glezarova. In 1973, he won Second Prize in the Jacques Thibaud International Violin Competition in Paris. Mikhail Kopelman served as first violinist of the Borodin String Quartet with whom he performed and recorded for two decades and with the Tokyo String Quartet for six years. Currently Mikhail Kopelman performs as leader of the Kopelman Quartet. For over 15 years he has been closely associated with Sviatoslav Richter in numerous performances and recordings.

Mikhail Kopelman has taught at the faculties of the Moscow Conservatory, Yale University, and is currently professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music. Many of his former students now occupy positions in the most prestigious orchestras and universities throughout the world. Mikhail Kopelman has recorded for the Melodia, EMI, Virgin Classics, Teldec and Philips labels. In 1995, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society Award and the Concertgebouw Silver Medal of Honour.

Boris Kuschnir was born in Kiev and studied the violin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Boris Belenky and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet. His many encounters with Shostakovich and David Oistrakh (with whom he also studied), had a lasting influence on his artistic development. He was a founding member of the Moscow String Quartet, with which he played for nine years. He also founded the Vienna Schubert Trio and the Vienna Brahms Trio. Since 2002 he has also been a member of the Kopelman Quartet. He has made numerous recordings for labels including EMI and Naxos and has won numerous prizes at international competitions for both violin and chamber music. Boris Kuschnir teaches at the Vienna Conservatory and at the University of Music in Graz; his pupils have included J. Rachlin, N. Znaider, L. Baich, and A. Soumm. Boris Kuschnir is a member of the jury of various international music competitions (including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Paganini Competition in Genoa, and the Long- Thibaud Competition in Paris) and performs with distinguished partners. He was awarded the use of the Stradivarius violin (‘La Rouse Boughton’, 1703) by the Austrian National Bank in recognition of his services to music.

Jaime Laredo has had a distinguished career, spanning more than fifty years, as a soloist, orchestral conductor, and chamber musician. His musical personality was strongly influenced by his experience as a pupil of musicians such as J. Gingold, P. Casals, I. Galamian, and G. Szell. His First Prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, at the age of 17, launched his international career ; since then, he has appeared, as a soloist and as a conductor, with the world’s greatest orchestras. He has worked with conductors such as D. Barenboim, Z. Mehta, S. Ozawa, L. Slatkin, C. Davis, E. Ormandy, L. Stokowski, and G. Szell. He has also performed regularly as a member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and alongside his wife, the cellist Sharon Robinson. Jaime Laredo has recorded almost 100 discs, a number of which have won awards : his recording of the Brahms piano quartets with his regular partners Emmanuel Ax, Isaac Stern, and Yo-Yo Ma, for example, won a Grammy Award. Having previously taught at the Curtis Institute of Music and at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music, he now teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Jaime Laredo is Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Westchester Philharmonic. He and his wife are the Artistic Directors of the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati.

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.

Petru Munteanu trained in Bucharest under G. Manoliu, a former student of Enescu’s. He also followed the master classes of Y. Jankelevich and M. Weimann. After having lectured at the Bucharest Conservatory and run the school of music of the same city in 1970, he then taught at the conservatories of Lübeck and Hamburg. In 1994, he was appointed at the Rostock Conservatory. He became renowned on the musical scene with his concerts, his master classes, but also his publications and lectures. He taught master classes in Russia (Moscow and St-Petersburg), in Ukraine (Kiev and Kharkiv), in China (Shanghai), in the United States (Brunswick), in Spain (Madrid), in Poland, in Romania, in the Czech Republic (Prague) and in Switzerland (Bern).

Petru Munteanu is the current artistic director of the international violin competition and of the master classes for strings of Kloster Schöntal. His students have been appointed to the most prestigious German orchestras (the philharmonics of Berlin and Hamburg, the Bayerische Staatsoper, etc.) and many of them have won awards at international competitions. He has also been part of the jury of various international competitions (Jampolsky, Kocian, Wieniawski, Bach-Leipzig, Enescu, Tchaikovsky, Paganini, Lipizer, etc.).

Georges Octors, a prizewinner of various international competitions, initiated his career as violin soloist. In 1956, he set up the Ensemble Bach in Antwerp which was welcomed with enthusiasm throughout its many European tours. In 1960, André Cluytens, the musical director of the Belgian National Orchestra at the time, hired him as his assistant. In 1975, in turn Georges Octors was appointed maestro and musical director of the same symphonic group. Georges Octors is very popular in the Netherlands and conducts various orchestras there. He has also been in charge of the musical direction of the Gelders Orkest in Arnhem for ten years, and has often been invited by many orchestras in eastern and western Europe (for the London Symphony Orchestra among others), in the United States, in the former USSR (for the Philharmonic Society of St-Petersburg among others) and in South Korea, where he performs every year. From 1976 to 1989, he conducted the finals of the Queen Elisabeth Competition without a break. Georges Octors then took up the musical direction of the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, with which he recorded various discs which resounded in the international music press (Fanfare, Diapason, Crescendo). Georges Octors has also been invited to partake in the jury of various international competitions in Japan, Italy, Germany, etc.

Igor Ozim was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. After finishing his studies in his hometown, he studied with Max Rostal in London. He went on to win the Carl Flesch Competition in 1951 and was awarded First Prize in the ARD Competition in Munich in 1953. This enabled him to take part in intensive concert activity in Europe and overseas. His large repertoire encompasses some sixty violin concertos and numerous chamber music works. He has recorded extensively from the classical as well as from the contemporary repertoire. Many contemporary works, of which he has given first performances, are dedicated to him. Igor Ozim has performed with leading international orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic and many others. He has become one of the most sought-after violin teachers in Europe and has taught at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and at the Conservatoire in Berne. He currently teaches at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has also given master classes all over the world and has been a member of the jury of many renowned violin competitions.

Yayoi Toda began with violin lessons at the age of four and quickly showed her talents as she took first place in the primary school division of the 33rd Japan Music Competition for Students in 1979. Her competitive successes continued and in 1985, she won first place in the 54th Japan Music Competition. She studied at Tokyo's Toho Gakuen High School and went to Europe for further studies at Amsterdam's Sweelinck Music Academy. She has worked with Toshiya Eto, Herman Krebbers, Charles-André Linale and Dorothy Delay and is a recipient of the prestigious Idemitsu Music Award. In 1993 she came to the attention of the classical music world when she won first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

To date, her busy performance schedule has included engagements with London Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Bonn Beethovenhalle Orchestra, The Hague Residentie Orchestra, Radio Chamber Orchestra (Holland), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Noord-Nederlands Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen as well as many of Japan's own major orchestras.

She has performed with artists including Seiji Ozawa, Yuri Simonov, Jean Fournet, Gary Bertini, Kenichiro Kobayashi, Martha Argerich, Stanislav Bunin, Peter Eötvös, Shlomo Mintz, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Frank Braley, Abdel Rahman El Bacha and Alexander Schneider.

In 1996, Yayoi Toda received the Delay Scholarship to study for one year at the Juilliard School, and a year later made her New York debut. The same year saw her performance at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam of the violin concerto dedicated to her by Dutch composer Tristan Keuris, Violin Concerto No 2. She has been invited yearly to the Fukushima International Music Festival.

Yayoi Toda has made recordings such as “Enesco, J.S. Bach” and “The Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach” for the Ongaku-no-Tomo record label, “Six Sonatas for Violin Solo of Ysaye” in 2004, the precious favorite violin pieces “Reve d'enfant” in 2006 for EXTON.

She performs on the “Pietro Guarneri (1740)” generously provided by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry, Ltd.

Viktor Tretjakov was born in 1946 in Krasnojarsk, Siberia, in a family of army musicians. He initiated his studies in Irkutsk and then studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow under Yuri Jankelevitch. In 1966 he was awarded the First Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. At the end of the 1960’s, Viktor Tretjakov performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Rudolf Kempe appointed him as head of the Münchner Philharmoniker. He has since performed across the world with leading orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Orchestre de Paris, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Japan and the orchestras of Philadelphia, Cleveland, Toronto and Saint-Petersburg. He has collaborated with conductors of great renown: L. Maazel, Z. Mehta, K. Penderecki, A. Previn, V. Gergiev and M. Jansons. Viktor Tretjakov also plays chamber music and has performed with the likes of Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Yuri Bashmet and Natalia Gutman. It is with these two last artists, as well as with Vassily Lobanov, that he is touring as a quartet with piano in 2005. Viktor Tretjakov is a professor at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He has recorded numerous CDs.