The 21st edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, dedicated to the piano, came to a close on Saturday 31 May 2025 in a packed Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, pulsing with the energy of the twelve finalists. A flagship event on the Belgian and international music scene, the Competition highlights exceptional young artists every year. The 2025 4-volume collection gathers the most striking moments from this edition.

First Prize winner Nikola Meeuwsen succeeds Jonathan Fournel, Lukáš Vondráček, Boris Giltburg, Denis Kozhukhin, and Anna Vinnitskaya. He shines here in Prokofiev’s Concerto no.2, accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Kazushi Ono, as well as in Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses.

Other orchestral performances on the album include: Rachmaninov’s Concerto no.3 by Valère Burnon (Third Prize, VRT Canvas-Klara audience prize and Musiq3 Prize), Brahms’s Concerto no.2 by Wataru Hisasue (Second Prize), and Schumann’s Concerto by Arthur Hinnewinkel (Fourth Prize). The collection closes with Mozart’s Concerto no.27 performed by Jiaxin Min, accompanied by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Vahan Mardirossian.

A prominent place is given to solo and contemporary repertoire: the two compulsory works, Music for the Heart by Kris Defoort – performed by Yuki Yoshimi – and Two Studies by Ana Sokolović – by Shiori Kuwahara – precede Liszt’s Réminiscences de Norma by Masaya Kamei (Fifth Prize) and Brahms’s Sonata no.1 by Sergey Tanin (Sixth Prize), recorded at Flagey.

A vibrant testimony to this unforgettable edition, to be discovered and rediscovered with each listen.