Over the last month in Brussels the QE violin competition has been taking place. Last night it reached its climax as the last two finalists played their concertos and the judges retired to make their decision.

Previous winners have included many famous violinists such as Vadim Repin and Nikolai Znaider (two of my very favourite musicians) and in earlier years when it was known as the Eugene Ysaye competition, Jaime Laredo (who was on the jury this year) and Leonid Kogan.

All the finalists were wonderful musicians and I'm sure the jury had a very difficult task on putting them in any sort of order.

The final winner was, though, no real surprise. Sergey Khachatryan, a just turned 21 year old Armenian, and who I have actually heard perform in Manchester, took the final honours. He played Shostakovich concerto no 1 in the final. You can actually listen and watch clips here
http://kew.canvas.be/html/deelnemers_16.html

I'm sure he has a great future ahead of him...he is already playing the Shostakovich at this years Proms on 29 July, it will be on BBC 4.

Jane