Elisabeth Gilels

In 1937 the first Concours Eugène Ysaÿe took place at the Palais des Beaux-Arts.

Eugène Ysaÿe (°Liège 1858 – 1931) was a Belgian violin player with world fame. He was very close friends with Queen Elisabeth (of Belgium) and she initiated the ‘Concours International de Violon Eugène Ysaÿe’ in his honor. This concours became quickly one of the most outstanding music competitions in the world.

Elisabeth Gilels (° Odessa 1919 – 2008) was born to a Jewish family, her father Grigory was a clerk at a sugar refinery, her mother Esfira was a housewife. The meeting of both produced for inexplicable reasons two outstanding musicians : Emil Gilels and Elisabeth.

“In Odessa, in spite of the hard times, the public enjoyed music very much. All attention was given to musically gifted children. In a modest Gilels’s flat in a poor and famous district of Odessa called Moldavanka there was a grand piano and already at the age of two little Emil showed interest in it touching keys and listening to them.” (Elena Fedorovich, Ekaterinburg, 2007)

Little ‘Yelizaveta’, consequently was surrounded by music at an early age and started her violin education with the eminent teacher Piotr Stolyarsky.

At the age of 18, she travels to Brussels and gets the 3rd price at the first ‘Concours International de Violon Eugène Ysaÿe’… Her brother Emil won the contest for piano a year later.

After WWII, she formed a duo with Leonid Kogan, who became her husband, and from 1966 she taught at the Moscow Conservatory.

She died on 13th of March 2008, at age of 88 in Moscow, Russia

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