IAMA opens up new opportunities for laureates of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition

The majority of competitions and foundations that set out to aid talented young musicians release CDs or DVDs and publish brochures and inserts in music magazines. In today's world this is no longer enough.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition does a great deal to help develop the careers of its laureates: there are, for example, live and recorded broadcasts of their performances, both on radio and television (including via the EBU); since 2001 these have been joined by Internet streaming, a boon to the artists in question.

Even more important, in terms of opening up new prospects for these young musicians, is the presence of concert organisers and agents at the competition and at the concerts in Brussels. Producers who are present in person at the semi-finals, finals, or concerts are in a position to fully appreciate the personalities and musicality of the participants. This puts them in a better position to choose those artists who meet their own requirements and suit the profile, style, and repertoire of their concerts.

Our own efforts in this field will, we hope, continue to be quietly effective; they have, however, been given a new impetus by the YIP programme for young musicians, to which we have access thanks to our affiliation to the IAMA. We have been able to supply recordings of some of our laureates to the organisation; these were listened to by a jury made up of concert organisers, artistic directors, and eminent music critics. As a result, Yossif Ivanov, who won second prize in our 2005 competition, was given the opportunity to perform for a panel of agents in the Cadogan Hall in London last November and, subsequently, at MIDEM, where he was awarded the YOUNG ARTIST AWARD. This season he is performing all over the world - at concert halls in New York, Stockholm, and Vienna, for example - as a Rising Star selected by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

Thanks to their own qualities as musicians in the first place, of course, but also thanks to the Queen Elisabeth Competition's links with the IAMA, we are able to help all of our laureates to achieve wider recognition - and not just the winner of the first prize, Sergey Khachatryan, who is now represented by Askonas Holt and has already signed for a leading label.

A number of agents have made offers to Yossif Ivanov. As a direct result of our connection with the IAMA, moreover, he has received invitations to play at concerts, including one with the London Philharmonic and Marin Alsop, which will coincide with the next IAMA congress in London in April 2007.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and to thank everyone at the IAMA for the quality of their work and for the integrity, flexibility, and professionalism they have shown in everything they do.                                     

Michel-Etienne Van Neste     

Secretary General of the Queen Elisabeth Competition