Spectacular Performances at the 2025 Queen Elisabeth

Competitions

4 June 2025

Piano is back in Brussels

Nikola Meeuwsen has been awarded First Prize at the 2025 Queen Elisabeth Competition for piano at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He is the first Dutch pianist to ever take the top prize. Second place went to Wataru Hisasue, while Valère Burnon claimed third place.

“It feels unreal, like a dream,” Meeuwsen told VRT Canvas after the announcement. “I’m speechless.” The 23-year-old performed Sergei Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto last Wednesday. “It felt like running a marathon,” he told the Dutch newspaper Trouw. 'You give it your all every time. It’s an overwhelming experience, but overall I’m very happy. Just reaching the final of such an iconic competition is an incredible honour.”

A few days earlier in the Finals week, Valère Burnon delivered a powerful performance, interpreting the compulsory piece by Kris Defoort as well as Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. “Of course I’m happy,” Burnon told RTBF after the results were announced. "Unfortunately, I didn’t break any records, but I’m still very satisfied."

This year's final saw seven male and five female pianists compete. An audience favourite from early on, the outstanding Chinese pianist Jiaxin Min, was not among the six prizes winners, but received a standing ovation also during the awards ceremony.

The next Queen Elisabeth Competition will take place from 4-30 May 2026 in the discipline of cello.

Nikola Meeuwsen is currently studying under Enrico Pace and Marlies van Gent at the Accademia Internazionale di Imola and under Frank Braley and Avedis Kouyoumdjian at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. In 2022 he was awarded the Grachtenfestival Award, having won the Concertgebouw Young Talent Award (2019), Royal Concertgebouw Competition (2014) and Steinway Competition (2012). He has already built up an extensive list of solo and chamber music performances, having worked with such symphony orchestras as the Residentie Orkest, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonia Varsovia. He is a regular guest at Dutch and international festivals, and has played with musicians such as Janine Jansen, Corina Belcea and Augustin Dumay. Future engagements include concerts with the Residentie Orkest, Belgian National Orchestra and Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, and chamber music with Alexander Warenberg, Benjamin Kruithof and Noa Wildschut.

Wataru Hisasue is currently studying under Klaus Hellwig at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He is the recipient of several scholarships, the ROHM Music Foundation among others, and has won top prizes in both national and international competitions, from the First and Audience Prizes at the Concours International de Piano de Lyon in 2015 to, most recently, Third Prize at the ADR Wettbewerb and two special prizes at the Concours Géza Anda 2024. Especially interested in the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, he has performed in both Europe and Japan, appearing alongside the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt, Collegium Musicum Basel, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Japan Century Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Münchner Kammerorchester and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. He will soon release a second digital album with music distributor Musideco.

After obtaining his bachelor’s degree from the Conservatoire royal de Liège in 2018, Valère Burnon left for Germany to study under Florence Millet at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. Since 2022 he has been Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and in recent years he has also perfected his piano skills at the Accademia Internazionale di Imola. Among other awards, he has won prizes at the Épinal (First Prize, 2019), Bremen (First Prize, 2021), Long-Thibaud (Revelation Prize, 2022) and Viotti (Second Prize, 2023) competitions. Valère Burnon has appeared alongside such orchestras as the Sinfonia Varsovia, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and the Milan and Metz Symphony Orchestras. He has performed in the Philharmonic Halls of Cologne, Liège and Luxembourg, and in such venues as the Salle Cortot in Paris and Tonhalle in Düsseldorf. Having learned the violin as his first instrument, he has a particular affinity for the chamber music repertoire. He has recorded two CDs and has been teaching chamber music at the Conservatoire royal de Liège since 2022.

Prizes :
First Prize: Nikola Meeuwsen (23), The Hague
Second Prize : Wataru Hisasue (30), Shiga, Japan
Third Prize: Valère Burnon, (27), Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium

Fourth Prize: Arthur Hinnewinkel
Fifth Prize: Masaya Kamei
Sixth Prize: Sergey Tanin

unranked Laureates: Rachel Breen, Mirabelle Kajenjeri, Shiori Kuwahara, Nathalia Milstein, Jiaxin MIn, Yuki Yoshimi

Jury:
Gilles Ledure (Chair), Imogen Cooper, François-Frédéric Guy , Daejin Kim, Momo Kodama, Denis Kozhukhin, Julien Libeer, Jan Michiels, Laura Mikkola, Steven Osborne, Jorge Luis Prats, Anne Queffélec, Tamara Stefanovich, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Anna Vinnitskaya, Boyan Vodenitcharov, Lilya Zilberstein

Artists:
Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie/ Vahan Mardirossian, Conductor
Brussels Philharmonic/Kazushi Ono, Conductor

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