Historic victory. Ukrainian violinist triumphs at Queen Elisabeth Competition

The winner of one of the most prestigious international music competitions, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, was announced in Brussels on the night of 1-2 June. Dmytro Udovychenko, a graduate of the Kharkiv Music Lyceum (teacher Liudmyla Varenina), claimed the victory.

Dmytro continued his studies at leading German universities with teachers Boris Garlitsky and Christian Tetzlaff and became a prizewinner at many international violin competitions.

Dmytro won the Second Prize at the Josef Joachim Competition in 2018, the Third Prize at the Jean Sibelius Competition in 2022, and the First Prize at the Singapore International Violin Competition in 2022.

Dmytro Udovychenko played brilliantly in all the competition rounds. In the final, on his 25th birthday, he performed Dmitri Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition is held annually in various categories.

Ukrainians have placed high in this competition (in particular, in 2015, Oleksii Semenenko won the Second Prize among violinists, while cellist Oleksii Shadrin won the Fourth Prize in 2022).

However, this is the first time in the history of independent Ukraine that a Ukrainian violinist has won. He will receive a prize of €25,000.

At the awards ceremony, Udovychenko openly refused to shake hands with one of the jury members, Russian Vadym Repin (the musician was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia by Putin in 2022, and his wife Svetlana Zakharova is a member of Putin's United Russia party and supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine).

The Queen Elisabeth Competition is supported and attended by Queen Mathilde of Belgium.

Background: Discussions took place in Vienna regarding the rediscovery of an opera composed by Ukrainian composer Dmytro Bortnianskyi.

Support UP or become our patron!