Throughout the month of May, Queen Mathilde of the Belgians has carried out various engagements in connection with the Queen Elisabeth Music Prize.
The competition started on the 3rd of May 2021, with Queen Mathilde releasing a video message on social media in both in French and Dutch, highlighting the role music played during the pandemic. This year, there were 56 candidates for the competition, coming from 16 different countries.
The semi-finals for the prize took place from the 10th to the 15th of May 2021. Semi-finals see the number of candidates be reduced to 24. The round of semi-finals was introduced by Queen Mathilde with the publication of a picture on social media on the 10th of May which sees her and her two younger children, Prince Emmanuel and Princess Éléonore, watching the competition online.
The final saw the last six candidates compete for the prize. Before the week of finals started, on the 23rd of May, Queen Mathilde met virtually with the six finalists to wish them good luck.
On the 30th of May, Queen Mathilde was present for the last night of the finals, which saw Jonathan Fournel of France win first place, and the Queen Mathilde Prize. Second place and the Belgian federal Government Prize went to Sergei Redkin of Russia. Third place, and the Earl of Launoit prize, went to Keigo Mukawa, from Japan. Fourth place and the Belgian Community Government prize went to Tomoki Sakata, also of Japan. Fifth place, and the Brussels Capital Region prize, went to Vitaly Starikov of Russia. And finally, sixth place, and the City of Brussels prize, went to Dmitry Sin of from Russia.
On the 1st of June, Queen Mathilde hosted the prize ceremony for the competition at Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, in Waterloo, a city south of Brussels.
The prize was founded in 1937 by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Eugène Ysaÿe, a Belgian composer and violinist. It has been one of the most well-established music prizes in the world ever since. It focuses on different classical music disciplines, one each year: piano (since 1937), violin (since 1938), lyric singing (since 1988) and cello (since 2017).
The preselections are based on videos submitted by candidates when they sign up to participate, and the first round does not have a closed number of candidates. The candidates then undergo three public phases: selections, which slim down the competition to 24 semi-finalists. Those 24 will then be slimmed down again to 12 finalists, the first 6 of which will receive the title of “Laureate”.
In 2021, because of the pandemic, all numbers were divided in half – there were only 12 semi-finalists and 6 finalists, and therefore there were no finalists that didn’t receive the title of “Laureate”.
Queen Mathilde took over the Royal Patronage of the Prize in 2013, following the death of Queen Fabiola, whom herself took over the patronage from Queen Elisabeth in 1965.
