In the final of Queen Elisabeth Competition 2016, on Wednesday 25 May in the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Aljoša Jurinić performed Claude Ledoux's A Butterfly's Dream and Chopin's Concerto n. 1 in E minor op. 11 with the National Orchestra of Belgium conducted by Marin Alsop and won the Fifth Prize.
One of the world's most prestigious competitions for young musicians, the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium was established in 1937. At the time it was known as the Eugène Ysaÿe Competition. H.M. Queen Elisabeth and the celebrated Belgian violinist and composer were behind this magnificent project. It is member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions. In 1965, following the death of Queen Elisabeth, Queen Fabiola took the Queen Elisabeth Competition under her patronage. She remained the Competition's Honorary President until 2013. Now, the patron is Her Majesty Queen Mathilde.
After training in his homeland Croatia and later at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole under Elisso Virsaladze, Aljosa Jurinic is currently studying under Grigory Gruzman at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. After receiving most of the prestigious awards for young musicians in Croatia, he won the Robert Schumann International Competition (Zwickau) and the Shura Cherkassky International Competition (Milan) in 2012. In 2015, he was a finalist in the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw. He has performed in Croatia (Piano Fortissimo in Zagreb), Georgia (Tbilisi), Ukraine (Kiev Summer Music Evenings), France (Chopin Festival in Nohant), and Italy (Puccini Festival, Serate Musicali). Aljoša Jurinić made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2014.
This summer, on 16 August, Aljoša Jurinić will have his debut at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival where he will in the Rector's Palace Atrium perform Debussy's Rêverie, Schumann's Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 and Chopin's Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 and Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52. Tickets for the event are available here and to learn more about the event, click here.
Aljoša's performance at the 67th Dubrovnik Summer Festival is part of the newly established Key to the Future programme that features young laureates of the world's most prestigious music competitions. Besides Aljoša, this summer will perform: Andrew Tyson (piano), Stephen Waarts (violin), Andrey Gugnin (piano), Aleksey Semenenko (violin), Inna Firsova (piano) and Yuri Favorin (piano).