Queen Elisabeth Competition Names Winners for 2025 Piano Edition

The Dutch pianist Nikola Meeuwsen has won first place with €25,000

The 21st piano edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition has come to close in Belgium, where the finalists performed with the Brussels Philharmonic and conductor Kazushi Ono.

Nikola Meeuwsen won the competition’s grand prize with €25,000, plus several solo recitals and a tour of Asia and Brazil alongside the Second Laureate.

Second place with €20,000 went to the Japanese pianist Wataru Hisasue; third prize and €17,000 was awarded to the Belgian pianist Valère Burnon, who also won the VRT CANVAS/Klara-Prijs and Prix Musiq3 prizes, both valued at €2,500. 

Arthur Hinnewinkel was awarded fourth place with €12,500; the €10,000 fifth prize and €8,000 sixth prize was awarded to Masaya Kamei and Sergey Tanin, respectively.

The remaining six laureates, Rachel Breen, Mirabelle Kajenjeri, Shiori Kuwahara, Nathalia Milstein, Jiaxin Min, and Yuki Yoshimi, were each awarded a €4,000 cash prize. 

Chaired by Gilles Ledure, the 2025 piano jury comprised Imogen Cooper, François-Frédéric Guy, Daejin Kim, Momo Kodama, Denis Kozhukhin, Julien Libeer, Jan Michiels, Laura Mikkola, Steven Osborne, Jorge Luis Prats, Anne Queffélec, Tamara Stefanovich, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Anna Vinnitskaya, Boyan Vodenitcharov, and Lilya Zilberstein.

“It feels unreal, like a dream,” Meeuwsen said after his win. “I’m speechless … It felt like running a marathon. You give it your all every time. It’s an overwhelming experience, but overall I’m very happy. Just reaching the final of such an iconic competition is an incredible honour.”

More on each of the laureates can be read here.