75 Years of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition

The emblem of the Concours Reine Elisabeth against a left-facing portrait of Queen Elisabeth. The mint director's mark and the Brussels mint mark (the helmeted head of Archangel Michael) flank the portrait to left and right. The years 1937–2012 appear above the portrait; the inscription 'QUEEN ELISABETH COMPETITION' below. The country code 'BE' is engraved to the right.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition is one of the most prestigious and demanding music competitions in the world. It was founded in 1937 on the initiative of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, herself a passionate violinist who maintained close ties with leading musicians of her time - including Eugène Ysaÿe, whose 1937 violin competition the Concours directly succeeded. The competition is aimed at young performers and rotates between piano, voice, violin and cello. One of its distinctive features is the so-called Week of Isolation, during which finalists prepare a newly composed required work without any outside contact - a test regarded worldwide as a benchmark for musical maturity and resilience under pressure. Brussels, as the host city, has closely linked the competition to Belgian cultural life.

The list of laureates reads like a who's who of the international concert scene: David Oistrakh won the first edition in 1937, followed in later decades by Gidon Kremer, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Augustin Dumay. In piano too, the Concours has shaped careers, including those of Vladimir Ashkenazy and Mitsuko Uchida. Belgium honoured the competition's 75th anniversary in 2012 with a 2-euro commemorative coin, spotlighting one of the country's most enduring cultural institutions - a competition that, since its founding, has embodied the link between Belgian cultural patronage and top international musicianship.