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).

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.

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 leading Korean violinist Kim Min is highly respected as a soloist, as a chamber musician, as an educator, and as a music director. Born in Seoul, he graduated from the National University of his home town and from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, where he worked with Thomas Brandis and Max Rostal. While studying in Germany, he performed frequently on international tours. In 1979 he returned to Korea, where he was appointed leader (concertmaster) of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the KBS Symphony Orchestra. He was appointed professor of violin at Seoul National University and also took over the leadership of the Korean Chamber Orchestra, which he has developed into one of the country’s finest ensembles. He has given over 500 concerts worldwide with the KCO in celebrated venues such as those of the Rheingau, Naantali, and George Enescu festivals and the Beethoven Easter Festival. He has served on the jury of major international competitions. He served as Dean of the Music Faculty of Seoul National University from 2000 to 2006 and is currently an emeritus professor there. He is a member of the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea and is also music director of the Seoul Isang Yun Ensemble and the Seoul International Music Festival. He has been awarded the Premio Galileo (Una vita per la Musica) by the President of Italy and the Polish government’s Merit to Culture award.

Descended from a leading family of Liège musicians, Philippe Koch graduated in Liège before undertaking further studies with C. Ferras, P. Amoyal, and A. Grumiaux. Cconcertmaster of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, he has also had a solo career throughout Europe, Japan, the United States, and South America and has played with many renowned orchestras and conductors. A great enthusiast for chamber music and contemporary music, he has explored many aspects of both with the Grumiaux Trio, the Quatuor Louvigny, and the Brussels String Quartet, as well as in the Koch Trio with his daughter Laurence (violin) and his son Jean-Philippe (piano). His other partners have included G. Caussé, A.R. El Bacha, P. Gillilov, M. Kliegel, E. Moguilevsky, and S. Wieder-Atherton. Philippe Koch teaches at the Conservatoire Royal de Liège and frequently gives master classes in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Japan. He is also interested in orchestral conducting and has been invited to conduct a number of ensembles. His recordings (more than 30 CDs, ranging from Mozart to Bussotti, via Arensky, Vieuxtemps, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Pierné) have won numerous awards from the international specialist press, including the ‘Diapasons d’Or’, the ‘Choc’ awarded by Le Monde de la Musique, and Repertoire Magazine.

Shirly Laub studied with Clemens Quatacker at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and with Viktor Liberman and Philippe Hirshhorn in Utrecht. In 1997 she was awarded the title of ‘Jeune Soliste des communautés des radios publiques de langue française’ and in 2001 received a Juventus award from the Council of Europe. That same year she joined the New York-based Silk Road Ensemble, in which she played chamber music with cellist Yo-Yo Ma throughout the world. She has made recordings of music for violin and piano duo and of chamber music and as first violinist for various radio stations, including Musiq’3, Klara, Concertzender, Radio Classique France, Suisse Romande, Radio Canada, RAI, and the BBC, and on the Explicit! and Fuga Libera labels. As a solo violinist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London, from 1998 to 2005, she was regularly invited to perform as concertmaster at the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), in the BBC orchestras, and in the leading Belgian symphony orchestras, as well as in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Korea. Concerts as a soloist and chamber musician - for the most part as first violin of Oxalys and in TrioFenix - have seen her perform in the world’s most prestigious concert halls. She also teaches the violin at the Royal Brussels Conservatory.

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.

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.

Born into a family of musicians, Tatiana Samouil began playing the violin at the age of 6. She went on to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow under Maya Glezarova and at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels under Igor Oistrakh. She is a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth, Tchaikovsky, Michael Hill and Jean Sibelius competitions. She has performed with such leading orchestras as the Russian National Orchestra, the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Kammerorchester, the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse and the Orchestra of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and under such renowned conductors as Antonio Pappano, Christian Arming, Kazushi Ono, Dmitry Liss, Gilbert Varga and Jean-Jacques Kantorow. Tatiana Samouil has made more than twenty recordings, winning a Diapason d’Or and a Choc de Classica. She recently released the complete chamber music of Rachmaninov with pianist Andrei Korobeinikov and cellist Pavel Gomziakov, as well as a tribute album to Maria Malibran with her sister Anna Samouil and the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie. A passionate educator, she teaches at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles and at the Musikene Higher School of Music in San Sebastián.

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.

Born in Shanghai, Vera Tsu Weiling began studying the violin with her father, Tsu Chi Peng, before going on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing with Lin Yaoji. In 1980 she went to pursue her studies at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, under Dorothy DeLay and Rafael Bronstein. She has appeared with many orchestras, including the New York City Symphony, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Hanover Symphony Orchestra (Pennsylvania), the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Budapest Radio Orchestra, the WDR Rundfunkorchester, and the China Central Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1993 she was invited to give a solo recital at the gala concert of the Légion d’Honneur at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In 1998 she appeared with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in Berlin and in China. At the opening of the Shanghai Oriental Art Center in 2005 she played the Beethoven concerto, with K. Penderecki as conductor. Her recordings of the Korngold and Goldmark concertos were warmly acclaimed by the critics. Vera Tsu Weiling serves as a member of the jury of many prestigious competitions. Since November 2000 she has been professor of violin at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 2009 she founded the China Trio.