American Stella Chen wins Queen Elisabeth Competition
The American Stella Chen is the surprising winner of the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition. The twelve-member jury chose a violinist who was tipped by a few.
The second and third place went to the Canadian Timothy Chooi and the American Stephen Kim respectively.
26-year-old Chen played her final on Friday on the penultimate competition day. In addition to the compulsory work, she performed Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. Chen studied at the renowned Juilliard School with Itzhak Perlman. The laureate goes home with a cash prize of 25,000 euros and a Stradivarius violin, which she gets on loan.
The Canadian Timothy Chooi, who turned out to be a public favorite due to an exuberant performance, is the second laureate. Stephen Kim, the only one who performed the compulsory work without a score, takes the bronze.
Shannon Lee, Julia Pusker and Cristina Goicea complete the top 6. Sylvia Huang finished with the non-ranked laureates. Earlier in the evening, she received the Canvas-Klara Audience Award worth 2,500 euros. The laureates of the competition will play a series of laureate concerts in the coming weeks, in which the general public can see them again at work.
