The final round of the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition was held between 27 May and 1 June at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts. 12 competitors vied for first prize, the Queen Mathilde Prize which would set them up with €25,000, international performance opportunities and the loan of the 1708 ‘Huggins’ Stradivari violin.

Ukrainian violinist, Dmytro Udovychenko secured the grand prize after a performance of Escaich’s Variations Litaniques and Shostakovich Concerto No.1 in A minor (Op.77) accompanied by the Belgian National Orchestra and conducted by Antony Hermus.

This is not a one-off for the 25 year-old Udovychenko, who previously won first prize at the 2023 Montreal International Violin Competition, third prize at the 2022 Sibelius International Violin Competition and first prize at the Singapore International Violin Competition.

US violinist Joshua Brown took home second prize (€20,000), while the Count de Launoit third prize went to fellow US violinist Elli Choi.

The competition was chaired by Gilles Ledure and the panel included Augustin Dumay, Miriam Fried, Lorenzo Gatto, Philippe Graffin, Koichiro Harada, Dong-Suk Kang, Victor Kissine, Kyung Sun Lee, Midori, Vadim Repin, Tatiana Samouil, Vineta Sareika, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Isabelle van Keulen.