The Team

Anne-Sophie Lemaire — Founder & Executive Director

Anne-Sophie has been inside the competition world since she was a teenager — four international first prizes between the ages of 16 and 19, years of intensive training under Boris Kuschnir, and a performing career that led her to the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, where she serves as Sub-Leader of the First Violins. She teaches at IMEP in Namur and previously served as Executive Director of the Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition.

She founded Aurelia because she knows, from the inside, what competitions get wrong — and what they could get right. The opaque judging, the inaccessibility, the indifference toward candidates who don't make the final round. Aurelia exists because she decided that knowing wasn't enough.

George Tudorache — Artistic Director & President of the Jury

George is Konzertmeister at the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and professor at IMEP. A performing career spanning decades, combined with his experience as Artistic Director of the Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition, gives him a rare perspective — one that bridges the stage, the classroom, and the jury table.

His role at Aurelia is to ensure that the competition's artistic standards reflect what he has spent a lifetime pursuing: music that is honest, prepared with integrity, and judged on its own terms.