The Award for Highly Talented Musicians

It is our mission to provide highly talented musicians with a platform to compete among peers and deliver constructive feedback on how they can improve further in their career. The winner of the award will have the special opportunity to perform together with Victor Dijon de Monteton, Koh Gabriel Kameda and a symphony orchestra at the Swiss Charity Concert.

The Swiss Charity Award is based on three key values.
1) It’s a neutral platform to support young musical talents in their development process.
2) We are forward thinking by embracing the newest and easiest technology in executing the competition globally.
3) Our aim is to grow constantly and promote the competition and its values in order to potentially extend beyond music in the future.

Akari Bastiaens had her first experience on stage when she was only five years old. She immediately demonstrated a strong predisposition for the piano which became more prominent when she, at the age of only six years old, won the Steinway Piano Competition Belgium. Not only did she win the first prize in her own age group, but was also awarded the Steinway & Sons prize for best overall performance.

By now, Akari has had many more successful appearances in national and international competitions winning many first prizes and special prizes. In 2023 she won the First Prize and the Mozart prize for best performance of a work by him in the MozArte international piano competition in Aachen (DE). The next year, she won First Prize, Presse Prize and Audience prize in the 2024 International Piano Competition for Young Musicians in Enschede (NL) In 2025 she won the First Prize, Presse Prize and Audience Prize at the 2025 Prinses Christina Concours (NL) and the First Prize at the International Chopin Competition for the Youth in Szafarnia (Poland) The jury praised the highly poetic and stylistically pure performance of Chopin’s second Ballade.

Akari has been a student at the Junior Conservatorium of Maastricht since 2019 where she first had piano lessons with prof. Joop Celis and from September 2025 on with prof. Ashley Wass. From 2022 she has also become an academy student of the Davidsbundler Music Academy in The Hague (NL) where she has lessons with Tatiana Abayeva and Borys Federov. She regularly attends masterclasses with Maestro Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden in performance and interpretation training.

Even at her young age, Akari has had the chance to perform on many professional stages participating in festivals such as the Arte Amanti International Chamber Music Festival, the Grachtenfestival, Festival Musicorum, International Festival Vocalis, Gentse Feesten and the Ljubljana Festival. As prize winner of the Prinses Christina Competition Akari was invited to perform with the Eurogio Jeugdorkest (Euregio Youth Orchestra) with which she performed Ravel’s magnificent piano concerto in G-major during their annual concert tour. In November 2026 she will make her debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam where she will perform Grieg’s piano concerto in a-minor with the Philips Symphony Orchestra.