UTRECHT — January in Utrecht offered a concentrated lesson in how competitions work when they are designed less as elimination machines than as cultural ecosystems. Liszt Utrecht 2026 and the Netherlands Violin Competition presented two distinct Dutch approaches to the same basic business proposition: how to turn preparation, performance, and public trust into artistic growth, audience engagement, and long-term value. The results — musical, social, and financial — benefited not only the young musicians onstage but also the young at heart in the hall.
Liszt Utrecht has long rejected the idea that a competition should be decided by a single, high-pressure performance. Under executive director Rob Hilberink’s leadership, the event functions instead as a festival structured around process: selection rounds spread over time, themed recitals, a central chamber-music round, and only then an orchestral final. Pianists are evaluated not simply as virtuosos but as collaborators alert to color, balance, timing, and the ability to persuade others to listen.
The 2026 finals took place on Jan. 24 at TivoliVredenburg with three pianists — Kang Tae Kim (South Korea), Thomas Kelly (UK), and Alexander Kashpurin (Russia) — performing one of Liszt’s two piano concertos with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Stéphane Denève.
Kim opened with Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat. In his introductory video he said, “I feel many strong spirits,” but these took a while to develop against the backdrop of a very outgoing orchestra and conductor. The pianist only gradually began to find the beauty in his Fazioli. In the finale, piano and orchestra were nominally together, but fortissimo orchestral passages obscured the keyboard; then, just as Kim was fully in command, an audience whoop — sounding a bar too early — added an extra jolt of excitement to his final charge.
Kelly followed in Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major with the intent of adapting to the conductor’s heavy hand. His passagework under the winds was noble, with a kind of marble solidity, but the structural rigidity that had been a virtue earlier in the competition now sounded stolid. In the second section, the conducting grew fussy, and the cadenza was lovely but led nowhere in particular. Kelly never quite found Liszt’s genius as a pianist, his ability to propel music forward through touch and timing, and never fully asserted himself.
Then came Kashpurin, again in the Second Piano Concerto. “It was not just a week for me,” he said earlier in the competition, referring to his late entry, “it was a little life.” From the opening chords, the difference was immediate. The clarinet solo emerged with nuance and phrasing. Kashpurin knew how to use silence to adjust balances, to be heard, and to be listened to. He identified the notes to which the conductor responded, rather than the other way around.
His runs were sweeps of beauty; his phrases arced with authority. The long-limbed melodies found their natural protagonist, and even the orchestra’s low strings and brass became part of the dialogue between soloist and ensemble. In the great outbursts he exulted, and Denève watched him. The orchestra was finally allowed to unleash.
In the spiritual sections, Kashpurin’s playing under the cello solos was hypnotic, encouraging the cellist to give more of himself. As throughout the competition, his chamber-music instincts proved decisive. He elicited rapt silence from the hall. There was no heavy sledding, only a series of vivid, magical moments. He varied his triplets, shaped shadowed half-tones, and in the final surge punctuated the tempo so decisively that the ending could not sag. It was Liszt realized from the keyboard outward.
Liszt Utrecht competition’s insistence on chamber music, listening, and sustained process made the jury’s decision inevitable. Awarded both First Prize and the Audience Award, Kashpurin emerged as the pianist who most fully met the competition’s demands.
If the triennial Liszt Utrecht resembles a festival disguised as a competition, the biennial Netherlands Violin Competition operates as a national institution with international reach. Though branded Dutch, its finalists are shaped as much by studies abroad as at home, moving fluidly between conservatories, masterclasses, and orchestras across Europe. The competition’s structure — preliminary rounds, finals with orchestra, public events, and outreach — reflects director Aart-Jan van der Pol’s similar belief that a violinist’s career is built in public, not behind closed doors.
The Oskar Back Prize Final on Jan. 31 brought three Dutch violinists in their mid-twenties to the Grote Zaal of TivoliVredenburg with a rich-sounding Residentie Orkest under a very sympathetic Otto Tausk. Each played at a level that made the label “emerging artist” feel almost beside the point.
Luna van Leeuwen opened with Glazunov’s Violin Concerto, projecting warmth and presence from her first low-register phrases. The orchestra responded warmly, winds and strings at a notably high level, and the competitive frame all but disappeared.
Rebecca Roozeman followed with Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, a work that invites both brilliance and style. The jury later described her as “a natural soloist” who “demonstrates great mastery, takes artistic risks, and played with complete sovereignty.”
Yente Lottman finished with Glazunov and flowed magnificently from the first bar. Nothing was predictable; every phrase carried its own poetry. She cruised the double-stops, led fast passages securely with winds, shaped the quiet lyrical material magically, and built the finale with irresistible momentum. Virtuosity served the music, not the reverse. She would have been my choice.
The jury awarded Roozeman the Oskar Back Prize, and she won the Audience Prize as well, with van Leeuwen and Lottman sharing second prize — an outcome that reflected three distinct artistic profiles rather than a single hierarchy.
If the Netherlands Violin Competition focused on classical-music repertoire, its enfant terrible Night of the Violin focused on everything but classical. Hierarchies fell away as finalists, former prizewinners, teachers, and guests shared the stage in an informal, six-hour marathon of chamber music, virtuoso turns, and unexpected collaborations. Audiences moved freely; responses were audible. Classical music gave way to the violin’s other lives — playful, physical, collaborative, and unguarded, blending classical roots with modern, jazz, and global sounds. Night of the Violin has become so popular that it plays every year, competition or not.
