Members of the jury 2025

Philippe Koch

Issuing from a great family of musicians, Philippe Koch studied in Liège before furthering his training with Masters Christian Ferras, Pierre Amoyal, and Arthur Grumiaux. As Konzertmeister of the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, he also pursues a solo career across Europe, Japan, the United States, and South America, allowing him to perform with numerous orchestras and collaborate with renowned conductors such as Paavo Järvi, Emmanuel Krivine, Yuri Ahronovich, and Alexandre Dmitriev. He has played in prestigious venues, including the Berlin, Brussels, and Luxembourg Philharmonies, Casals Hall in Tokyo, and the Center of Arts in Seoul.

Passionate about chamber music, he explores its diversity within the Koch Trio—alongside his daughter Laurence (violin) and his son Jean-Philippe (piano)—as well as with the Grumiaux Trio and the Louvigny Quartet. As a violin professor at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, he also gives masterclasses in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Japan, and Korea, and regularly serves as a jury member in various international competitions (Reine Elisabeth, Ysaye, Vieuxtemps, Grumiaux, etc.).

Interested in conducting, he is also invited to lead various ensembles. His discography, comprising over 35 CDs ranging from Mozart to Bussotti, has received multiple prestigious awards from the international specialist press, including two Diapasons d’Or, Choc-Monde de la Musique, Répertoire, and Pizzicato distinctions.

Kati Sebestyen

Born in Hungary, Kati Sebestyén was a violin professor at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel and an extraordinary professor at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. In 2005, she was a member of the artistic commission of the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition. She also taught at the Brabants Conservatorium, and today, she is a violin professor at the Prins Claus Conservatorium – Hanze University in Groningen, Netherlands.

She is regularly invited as a jury member or to give masterclasses at institutions such as Mozarteum Salzburg, the University of Rouen, Hannover-Goslar, CIM Morges, the University of North Carolina, Reykjavik Conservatory, Franz Liszt Academy Budapest, Carl Nielsen Academy Odense, Instituto Superior de Veracruz Mexico, and more.

As a solo or chamber violinist, she has performed in recitals or recordings in most European countries as well as in the USA. She was a member of the “Haydn Quartet,” concertmaster of the Sebastian Strings Chamber Orchestra, and a founding member of the Ensemble Contrasts. With these ensembles, she has recorded several CDs for EMS. She has received multiple distinctions in various European countries.

Yuzuko Horigome

Yuzuko Horigome, the first Japanese winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium in 1980, performed the J.S. Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas at Suntory Hall, Tokyo in November 2020 in celebration of her 40-year career. Ongaku-no-tomo, one of the leading classical music magazines, highly praised this performance, stating that “Horigome’s performance this evening left a lingering sense of profoundness of the spiritual power of sound”.

Yuzuko Horigome began playing the violin at the age of five under the tutelage of Mr. Ryosaku Kubota, and Mr. Toshiya Eto from 1975. Yuzuko graduated from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in 1980, and in the same year became the first Japanese person to win first prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium. Since then, Yuzuko has performed with world-class orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic; as well as with renowned conductors including Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Sándor Végh, and André Previn.

Yuzuko had also been invited to participate in many internationally well-known festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival in the United States, the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival directed by Gidon Kremer, the Lugano Argerich Music Festival (Switzerland), and the Flanders Festival (Belgium). Yuzuko moreover dedicates herself to chamber music, having performed with the likes of Rudolf Serkin, Martha Argerich, Jean-Marc Luisada, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Nobuko Imai, Antonio Meneses and Charles Neidich.

Yuzuko furthermore devotes herself to holding Master Classes at locales such as Camerata Picena (Italy), Cambridge (UK), Aix-en-Provence (France), Brescia (Italy), and Kada (Wakayama, Japan).

With the desire to help contribute to the restoration in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, Yuzuko directs and performs at the Fukko Concert, a series of charity concerts held annually in Belgium for the disaster victims.

Yuzuko has also been invited to be a jury member of many major international competitions, and since May 2016 has served as the Violin Section Jury Chairperson at the Sendai International Music Competition. In July 2015, her book “Violinist-no-ryobun (Violinists’ Corner)” was published by the Shunjusha Publishing Company. She is currently a professor at the Conservatorium Maastricht.

Yuzuko Horigome plays on a Joseph Guarneri del Gesù, Cremona, 1741.

Yossif IVANOV

Acclaimed as “a player of impressive authority and presence” (The Strad) and “one of the top violinists of tomorrow” (Diapason), Yossif Ivanov, has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting violinists of his generation. At the age of 16 he was awarded First Prize at the Montreal International Competition, and two years later the Second Prize, as well as the Public Prize, at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.

Over the past seasons Yossif Ivanov has made acclaimed debuts in all the major European halls. He has performed with orchestras such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI, Vancouver Symphony, Residentie Orchestra The Hague, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Lucerne Symphony, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Milano Verdi Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Luxemburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lille, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, as well as all major Belgian orchestras.

He has collaborated with well-known conductors such as Neëme Järvi, Marin Alsop, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Vladimir Jurowski, Kazushi Ono, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Philippe Herreweghe, Jaap Van Zweden, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Ion Marin, Yuri Simonov, Louis Langrée and John Axelrod.

In 2010 he was invited to tour North America with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (under Vladimir Jurowski) and made his Asian debut (Malaysian Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestras).

Yossif Ivanov has been invited to play recitals at a.o. the Menton & Montpellier Festivals (France), Mozarteum Salzburg, Tokyo (Kichijoji Theatre), Philharmonie Essen, Beethovenfest Bonn, the Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti Roma, Carnegie Hall (New York), and the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club in Montréal. As well as his regular recital partner Itamar Golan, Yossif has collaborated with the Ingrid Fliter, Frank Braley, David Kadouch and Plamena Mangova.

Highlights of 11/12 included debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Bruch), Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI (Bartók 2), Vancouver Symphony (Mendelssohn), Oregon Symphony (Dutilleux), as well as return visits to the Brabants Orchestra (Bruch), Orchestre National d’Ile de France (Brahms), etc.

Future orchestral projects include debuts with the Polish Chamber Orchestra in Stuttgart (Beethoven), Hong Kong Sinfonietta (Chausson and Ravel) and several Belgian orchestras. Future recital engagements include performances at the Montreal Chamber Music Society, Brussels (Bozar), as well as a tour in Italy (Ravenna, Ferrara and Imola).

His debut recording on the Ambroisie/Naïve label (sonatas by Franck,Ysaye & D’Haene) was awarded a Diapason d’Or de l’Année. Both his concerto recordings (concerti by Bartók & Shostakovich, as well as a Dutilleux-CD) also received high critical acclaim.

Yossif Ivanov has studied the violin with Zakhar Bron, Igor & Valery Oistrakh and Augustin Dumay. Since 2008 he is the youngest violin teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.

Yossif Ivanov plays on the 1699 “Lady Tennant” Stradivarius, kindly lent by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.

Hrachya Avanesyan

Hailed as a “sensitive and highly skilled musician with expressive nuances” (Gramophone Magazine) and a “soloist with passionate power, feeling and sweet tone” (Frankfurter Allgemeine), Hrachya Avanesyan has secured his place as an outstanding violinist with first prizes at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin and Carl Nielsen competitions.

Avanesyan has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Belgian National Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Orchestre de Chambre de Pelléas, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Lille, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the Liège Philharmonic, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic, the State Orchestra of the Rhenish Philharmonic, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, the Tokyo Symphony and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. These collaborations have been led by renowned conductors such as Eliahu Inbal, Marc Soustrot, Walter Weller, Lan Shui, Christopher Warren-Green, Joji Hattori, Paul Goodwin, Paul Watkins, Joana Carniero, Alexander Vedernikov, Joshua Weilerstein, Patrick Davin and Daniel Raiskin.