A shadow behind a shower curtain, a raised hand, an innocent victim... and above all, the strident strings of a large orchestra to make your hair stand on end... What would this monument, signed Alfred Hitchcock, be without the music that prodigiously amplifies the impact of the image? The OPRL invites you to a moment of "100% thrills" cinema with Psycho (1960), one of the most breathtaking films of the great Master of suspense, a source of inspiration still very much alive today (notably with the Bates Motel series ). When the large orchestra lays in perfect synchronization the terrifying music of Herrmann on the big screen projection...

EPSG:4326

OPRL+ Concert Film: Psycho

BOZAR

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

The Queen Elisabeth Competition for cello returns for its third edition. Hayoung Choi, winner of the previous competition, is a beloved guest at the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. This time, three new laureates bid farewell to Belgian audiences with a celebratory tour of the country’s finest concert halls. Following their success in the competition and at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, a performance in the Queen Elisabeth Hall is a must. Renowned as a launchpad for young talent, the competition offers a unique opportunity to discover the cellists of tomorrow. Join the laureates and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra for a dazzling evening featuring gems from the cello repertoire.

Laureates' concert Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition 2026

Queen Elisabeth Hall

Concertgebouw Brugge

 G G G, E flat … This short motif, among the most memorable in the history of music, opens Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Often associated, apocryphally, with the image of ‘fate knocking at the door’, these four notes became, for the composer, the driving force behind countless dramatic effects, by turns tempestuous, lyrical, playful or triumphant.

Beethoven Freedom & Fate

Vienna, early twentieth century. Under pressure from industrialization, the rise of psychoanalysis and growing social tensions, familiar world views are losing their footing and the refined styles of the fin de siècle their lustre. In music, literature and the visual arts, the boundaries of expression are being radically pushed back. Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alexander von Zemlinsky each sought, in their own way, a new sound idiom, rooted in late Romanticism but unmistakably turned towards the future. During this concert, Alain Altinoglu will showcase three of their masterpieces, all written at this turning point in European cultural history.

Vienna

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFe6mW6x9pc

The Artelize Podcast: 'Amplifying What Makes Us Human'. A conversation with Zuly E. Inirio

Podcast link: https://youtu.be/4hagYvrYbuM

The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36M5Hi6O80

The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59E40S_EQSY

The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

 Jeanine De Bique, artist in residence in Brussels this season, joins the Grammy-winning ensemble Apollo’s Fire and conductor Jeannette Sorrell to explore the historical connections between Europe and the Caribbean colonies in the eighteenth century. Across the waters, tales of love, despair and resilience emerge – with surprising resonance for today.

Echoes Across the Atlantic

What happens when music doesn’t aim to impress but dares to feel? The great traditions fracture, making room for something rawer and deeply personal.

Erwartung

In 1926 the 28-year-old George Gershwin travelled to the French capital, determined to study under Maurice Ravel. Their meeting was warm, but lessons were out of the question – ‘Why should you be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?’ And so Gershwin crossed the pond again, taking the sound of a few Parisian taxi horns home as a souvenir. Two years later, he incorporated them into the orchestration of An American in Paris, a vibrant ode to life in the City of Light. The bustling boulevards, the tourist hotspots along the banks of the Seine, the cafés and Parisian nightlife: he translated all the impressions of his stay into a colourful and rhythmically irresistible rhapsody with a jazzy touch.

New Year’s Concert

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his last three symphonies in a great tidal wave of creative energy in 1788. The foaming crests of that wave encapsulate not only his talent, but also the history of symphonic music until that time. Sorrow and sensuality are intertwined throughout Symphony No. 40 – in the dramatic key of G minor – whereas the fundamental key of C major predicts the epic nature of his final ‘Jupiter’ Symphony.

Mozart

To mark Lithuania’s presidency of the European Council, a Lithuanian star cast is heading to Brussels, with tenor Edgaras Montvidas and soprano Asmik Grigorian, voted Female Singer of the Year (at the 2025 International Opera Awards).

Asmik Grigorian & Edgaras Montvidas

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker explores Philip Glass’s minimalist debuts through four early pieces – Music in Contrary Motion, Music in Fifths, Music in Similar Motion and Music with Changing Parts – composed between 1969 and 1970, after he had met Ravi Shankar.

Gla55

Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles

Five soft drumbeats and a restrained orchestral introduction usher in a violin concerto full of timeless lyricism. Three ominous series of brass chords signal the coming symphony will not escape the grip of fate. Ludwig van Beethoven and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the masters of opening bars?

Beethoven / Tchaikovsky

„Alle Menschen werden Brüder“: if Friedrich Schiller’s idealistic — and today particularly urgent — motto has been ingrained in our collective memory, then it is largely thanks to the Ninth Symphony. Based on a simple, recognizable melody, Ludwig van Beethoven builds up a masterful series of variations in his final movement that conveys Schiller’s hopeful Ode to Joy.

Beethoven Symphony 9

In Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, a traveller wounded by unrequited love treks through a desolate winter landscape, longing for the restfulness of death. This song cycle is one of the composer’s last and one of his most poignant. In the concentrated format of the lied, he succeeds as no one else in suggesting a wide spectrum of emotions, from intense desire to a bottomless sense of conflict and abandonment.

Winterreise

You may remember Antonio Salieri as the man accused of killing Mozart in the film Amadeus. But that is in fact unthinkable, as historical research has proved. In reality, Mozart and Salieri held each other in mutual respect.

Falstaff

You begin your journey at one of several meeting points across the city. Guided by a specially designed mobile app, you move through the streets while listening to fragments of a work by composer Huang Ruo, whose opera M. Butterfly  you can discover this season at La Monnaie.

City of Floating Sounds

In 2027 the Queen Elisabeth Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious music competitions, will once again be dedicated to the voice. From 9 May to 2 June, an international jury composed of opera professionals will gather in Brussels to seek out the stars of tomorrow.

Events in Brussels

OPRL+ Concert Film: Psych...

Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège

Laureates' concert Queen ...

Antwerp Symphony Orchestra

Beethoven Freedom & Fate

La Monnaie / De Munt

Vienna

La Monnaie / De Munt

The Artelize Podcast: 'Am...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

Echoes Across the Atlanti...

La Monnaie / De Munt

Erwartung

La Monnaie / De Munt

New Year’s Concert

La Monnaie / De Munt

Mozart

La Monnaie / De Munt

Asmik Grigorian & Edgaras...

La Monnaie / De Munt

Gla55

La Monnaie / De Munt

Beethoven / Tchaikovsky

La Monnaie / De Munt

Beethoven Symphony 9

La Monnaie / De Munt

Winterreise

La Monnaie / De Munt

Falstaff

La Monnaie / De Munt

City of Floating Sounds

La Monnaie / De Munt

Queen Elisabeth Competiti...

La Monnaie / De Munt