![\"2026_candidates-collage_3200x1800_16-9\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/42286_2026_candidatescollage_3200x1800_169_92931.jpg\")
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Read more news stories here<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n 66 cellists have been selected to take part in the 2026 Queen Elisabeth Competition, which begins on 4 May in Flagey, Brussels.<\/p>\n The contestants were whittled down from 185 cellists aged between 18 to 30. For the\u00a0preselection stage, candidates were required to submit video recordings of a programme including one of the\u00a0Six \u00c9tudes for cello and piano, opus postumus\u00a0by\u00a0Fran\u00e7ois Servais,\u00a0Variations concertantes op.17\u00a0by\u00a0Felix Mendelssohn, the\u00a0Sonata for solo cello\u00a0by\u00a0Eug\u00e8ne Ysa\u00ffe, as well as a work of their own choice for solo cello or with piano accompaniment, composed after 1950.<\/p>\n The preselection took place behind closed doors at the end of January 2026, with the jury presided by\u00a0Gilles Ledure, comprising\u00a0Natalie Clein, Roel Dieltiens, Valentin Erben, Benjamin Glorieux, Marie Hallynck, Anssi Karttunen, Jan Vogler, Marie Hallynck and Anssi Karttunen.<\/p>\n The first round of the competition will take place from 4 May to 9 May, where contestants will perform a Boccherini sonata as well as one of\u00a0Meditation by Nikolai Roslavets, Ballade op. 3 by Josef Suk and 3 Pi\u00e8ces by Nadia Boulanger, plus Lullaby for solo cello by Kaija Saariaho.<\/p>\n 24 semi-finalists will then be chosen to perform a recital as well as a concerto by Michael Haydn, Leopold Hofmann or Anton Kraft. These performances will take place from 11 May to 16 May with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, conducted by Vahan Mardirossian.<\/p>\n The final rounds will take place from 25 May to 30 May, where twelve finalists will perform the competition\u2019s imposed commissioned work – learnt by contestants in isolation – as well as a concerto for their own choice\u00a0with the Belgian National Orchestra, under the baton of Antony Hermus.<\/p>\n Marking the 75th anniversary of the competition, as well as the 150th anniversaries of Queen Elisabeth and the cellist Pablo Casals, the Goffriller cello \u2018Casals\u2019 will be loaned for four years to the first laureate<\/a> of the 2026 Competition.<\/p>\n The top prizewinner will receive the Queen Mathilde Prize of\u00a0\u20ac25,000, with prizes of\u00a0\u20ac20,000,\u00a0\u20ac17,000,\u00a0\u20ac12,500,\u00a0\u20ac10,000 and\u00a0\u20ac8,000 for second to sixth prize respectively. Each of the six unranked laureates will receive\u00a0\u20ac4,000.<\/p>\n 2026 marks the third edition of the cello competition, which was won in its inaugural edition in 2017 by\u00a0Victor Julien-Laferri\u00e8re<\/a>, and in 2022 by Hayoung Choi<\/a>.<\/p>\n The full list of contestants is as follows:\u00a0<\/p>\n Felix Brunnenkant<\/p>\n Andrew Ilhoon Byun<\/p>\n Maxim Calver<\/p>\n Jiwoong Chae<\/p>\n Tzu-Shao Chao<\/p>\n Jihyeuk Choi<\/p>\n Roric Cunningham<\/p>\n Clara Dietlin<\/p>\n Kiril Fasla-Prolat<\/p>\n Milo Ferrazzini<\/p>\n Jonathan Gerstner<\/p>\n Noam Ginsparg<\/p>\n Jo\u00e3o Pedro Gon\u00e7alves<\/p>\n Romain-Olivier Gray<\/p>\n Gabriel Guignier<\/p>\n Constantin Heise<\/p>\n Eline Hensels<\/p>\n Kuan-Yu Huang<\/p>\n Caterina Isaia<\/p>\n L\u00e9o Ispir<\/p>\n Alexandra Kahrer<\/p>\n Gaeun Kim<\/p>\n Tae-Yeon Kim<\/p>\n Yo Kitamura<\/p>\n Leland Ko<\/p>\n Theresa Laun<\/p>\n Carlo Lay<\/p>\n Saebom Lee<\/p>\n Youbien Lee<\/p>\n Maria Leszczy\u0144ska<\/p>\n Jiaqi Liu<\/p>\n Jiayi Liu<\/p>\n Isaac Lottman<\/p>\n \u00c1lvaro Lozano Cames<\/p>\n Jiyeon Maeng<\/p>\n Olivia Marckx<\/p>\n Lionel Martin<\/p>\n Anna Meipariani<\/p>\n Katharina Meldre<\/p>\n Sandro Meszaros<\/p>\n Krzysztof Michalski<\/p>\n Marcus Michelin<\/p>\n Charlotte Miles<\/p>\n Keisuke Morita<\/p>\n Sarah Moser<\/p>\n Dilshod Narzillaev<\/p>\n Ettore Pagano<\/p>\n Jonathan Reuveni<\/p>\n Ivan Sendetsky<\/p>\n Ivan Skanavi<\/p>\n Jakob Solle<\/p>\n Michael Song<\/p>\n Paolo Tedesco<\/p>\n Bence Temesv\u00e1ri<\/p>\n Simon Tetzlaff<\/p>\n Benett Tsai<\/p>\n Luiz Fernando Venturelli<\/p>\n Alejandro Viana<\/p>\n Carlos Vidal Ballester<\/p>\n Michael Wehrmeyer<\/p>\n Alexander Wollheim<\/p>\n Xuanhan Xu<\/p>\n Jiaxun Yao<\/p>\n Yoonsoo Yeo<\/p>\n Maria Zaitseva<\/p>\n Arne Jesper Zeller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read more news stories here\u00a0 66 cellists have been selected to take part in the 2026 Queen Elisabeth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-143884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}