Jury 2024

Marc Danel (France)

Violinist
Founder of the famous Quatuor Danel
Artistic director of the Dutch National String Quartet Academy (Amsterdam), Netherlands
Professor at Lyon Conservatoire (CNSMD), France
Professor at The Music and Education Higher School of Namur, Belgium

Marc Danel grew up in Lille, France, where both he and his sister learned violin with Jezdimir Vujicic. He continued his studies with Prof Igor Ozim in Cologne graduating with high hours in 1992.
In 1991, he founded the Danel Quartet, studying extensively with the Amadeus and Borodin Quartets, as well as with Pierre Penassou, Hugh Maguire, Walter Levin and Fiodor Druzhinin.
As leader of the quartet, he was major prizewinner of all the six competitions they entered between 1991 to 1995, including Evian, London and St Petersburg.
Since 1991, Marc Danel has performed 2500 concerts with the quartet including 25 performances of the complete cycle of Shostakovitch quartets and numerous performances of the Beethoven, Weinberg and Bartok cycles in the major halls in Europe, USA, Russia, China, Japan, Taiwan, South America and Central Asia. The quartet have recorded more than 20 CDs, garnering numerous awards in Europe and the US.
The quartet have championed the great but neglected soviet composer Mechtislav Weinberg, playing his quartets extensively since the ‘90s and recording the all of his 17 string quartets, (2009). For Weinberg’s centenary this year, the quartet will give 7 performances of the complete cycle of quartets, some of which the quartet have premiered. The quartet residence at Manchester University.
Marc Danel is artistic leader of the Dutch National String Quartet Academy (NSKA), many students of which have won major competitions. A highly sought-after teacher, he teaches at CNSDM Lyon and IMEP Namur, and at Manchester University where the quartet are artists in residence. He has also given Masterclasses in Europe, USA, Japan, Taiwan, Bielorussia and has a regular collaboration with the National Youth Orchestra of Chile.

Daniel Rubenstein (Belgium)

Violist & Violinist
Viola & Violin & Chamber music Professor at the Mons Royal Conservatory – Arts2 (BE)
Chamber music associate professor at the Brussels Royal Conservatory (BE)
Artistic Director of the Festival Mozart – International Chamber Music Festival Waterloo/Nagakute (BE/JP)

Daniel Rubenstein performed extensively as a chamber musician, in recitals or as a soloist, across Belgium, Holland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania, Brazil, Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, South Korea and Japan. 1st Prize Winner of several national music competitions, Daniel Rubenstein gave his first concert as a soloist at the age of 15 with the National Orchestra of Belgium under the direction of Mendi Rodan.
Daniel Rubenstein performed more than 200 chamber music works with nearly 100 International artists in festivals and important Concert Series, and has created more than 40 new works by renowned composers such as Hao-Fu Zhang, Jacqueline Fontyn, Don Freund, Oded Zehavi, Jean-Pierre Deleuze, Michel Lysight, Jan Freidlin, some of those work being especially written for or dedicated to him. He is also the 1st violinist for the Ensemble Mendelssohn which performs extensively in quintets and sextets, and violist of Estampes.
His discography includes 12 CD published by Dux, Talent records, Pavane, Kalidisc and Harp&Co, which received excellent critics from the International press (Gramophone, Crescendo, Fanfare, Musiweb etc.) including recitals violin-piano, viola-piano, double concertos and chamber music works.
Graduated with Honors from the Royal Brussels Conservatory (Belgium) and the Indiana University (USA) in 3 instruments (violin, viola & piano), Daniel Rubenstein is presently violin and viola as well as chamber music professor at the Royal Conservatory of Mons (Belgium), and Associate Professor in chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels where he also served as guest violin Professor. In addition, he gives regularly Masterclasses in Europe and abroad.
Daniel Rubenstein is also the Artistic director of the Festival Mozart (Belgium and Japan) and International chamber music festival which is now in its 25th year.

Alexis Galpérine (France)

Violinist
Professor at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, France (violin and pedagogy)
Professor at the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau, France

Violinist Alexis Galpérine was born in Paris in 1955. In his nearly forty-year career he has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in most European countries, Russia, Israel, America and Japan.
He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and at the Juilliard School in New York. His main teachers were Roland Charmy, Ivan Galamian and Henryk Szeryng. He is laureate of the Carl Flesch (London) competition, Paganini (Genoa) competition and First Prize at the Belgrade competition. He also holds a degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne.
He has performed as a soloist with the Orchester Lamoureux, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchester Mondial des Jeunesses Musicales, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchester Philharmonique de Lorraine, the American Chamber Orchestra and chamber orchestras from Sofia, Belgrade, Cologne, Tuscany, Bratislava etc., under the direction of Manuel Rosenthal, Michel Tabachnick, Antoni Ros-Marba, Paul Méfano, Charles Groves, Bruno Mantovani, Marcello Viotti…
As a chamber musician, he has performed many festivals such as the Library of Congress Summer Festival in Washington DC, the Musicades de Lyon, the Nancyphonies, the Arcs, Siena, Asolo, Cremona and in the concert series of Radio-France. A founding member of the American Chamber Players, an ensemble that was ten years in residence at the Library of Congress, he has given hundreds of concerts in the United States and Canada. In France, he is a permanent guest artist of the Ensemble Stanislas.
Alexis Galpérine has created nearly a hundred works, notably with the 2e2m and Musicavanti ensembles. He is the dedicatee of Alone by Paul Méfano, Légendes of Laurent Martin (concerto for violin, with winds and choir), the concerto by Yassen Vodenitcharov, sonatas by Frédérik Martin and Roger Boutry, Adagio by Olivier Greif , Belgirate by Carlos Roqué-Alsina, Edouard Souberbielle Quartet …
The cinema called on him and he composed stage music (for Coline Serreau, Benno Besson …)
Professor at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris (violin and pedagogy) and at the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau, he sits on the juries of international competitions (president of the Ginette Neveu Competition in 2013) and gives masterclasses in France and abroad . He was notably invited to Bloomington University.
His discography currently has around sixty recordings. A number of CDs and DVDs were distinguished (“Choc” from the World of Music, “10” from Repertory, “Coup de Cœur” from the Charles Cros Academy, “Diapason d’Or”, “Disc of the Month” from Classica …)
Alexis Galpérine is the author of musicological books and articles. The Olivier Greif book, in which he participated under the direction of Brigitte François-Sappey and Jean-Michel Nectoux (Editions Aedam Musicae), won the Singer-Polignac Foundation Prize and the Critics’ Prize, best musical book of the ‘year. He is a member of the editorial board of La Revue du Conservatoire, he is now President of the French section of ESTA (European String Teachers association) and directs the violin collection of Delatour-France editions.

Joachim Eijlander (Netherlands)

Cellist
Professor and Faculty Representative low strings at Codarts, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Teacher at the Nederlandse Strijkkwartet Akademie of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Professor at The Music and Education Higher School of Namur, Belgium

Joachim Eijlander performs as soloist and chambermusician in Europe, Asia and the United States. Joachim has performed alongside ensembles and musicians including the Borodin quartet, Lisa Larsson, Robert Holl, Solomiya Ivakhiv, Klara Wurtz, Inon Barnatan, Karl Leister and Olivier Patey.
Joachim Eijlander has collaborated with composers Henri Dutilleux, György Kurtag, Sofia Gubaidulina, Louis Andriessen and Joey Roukens.
In 2015 he recorded the cellosuites by J.S. Bach and in 2017 the caprices by A. Piatti and J. dall’Abaco on cd for the label Navis Classics. In 2020, the newest album “Dark Fire”, with music by A. Saygun, a. Tsintsadze and G. Cassadó, was published by label TRPTK. The cd’s were highly praised in the international press.
Joachim was a regular guest in the international music festivals of Sitka Alaska, El Paso Texas, Prussia Cove (GB), Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany). He performed in halls such as Philharmonie and Konzerthaus Berlin, Tonhalle Zürich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philadelphia Chambermusic society, and in New York.
Joachim is main cello teacher at Codarts Rotterdam, representative of the cello and double bass sections at Codarts, teacher at the Dutch Stringquartet Academy Joachim has taught as a guest teacher at Indiana University, Texas University, Kansas University, Milwaukee Conservatoire, Oklahoma University, the Ljubljana Conservatoire in Slovenia and at international festivals.
Joachim was founder of the internationally acclaimed Rubens Quartet, which existed from 2000 until 2014. The quartet won many international prizes and toured extensively in Europe and the USA.
Joachim Eijlander plays on an exceptional Italian cello made in Rome in 1755 by an anonymous master.