Cellists Charlotte Miles and Benett Tsai are among the 66 cellists selected to compete in the first round of the Queen Elisabeth International Cello Competition. They made the cut from from an applicant pool of 185.

Held every four years, the Queen Elisabeth International Cello Competition and widely regarded as the world’s preeminent cello competition for cellists aged between 18 and 30.

This year, the event, held in Brussels, will mark three major anniversaries: the 150th anniversary of the birth of its namesake, Queen Elisabeth, Queen of the Belgians from 1909 to 1934; the 75th anniversary of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Pablo Casals, one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century.

One of the exceptional moments of this edition will be the loan of Pablo Casals’s Goffriller ‘Casals’ cello (1733) to the First Prize winner of the 2026 Competition.

Charlotte Miles. Photo © Brian Cassey

Born in Melbourne in 2002, Charlotte Miles his already the recipient of more than 100 Australian and international competition prizes, including the Mozart-Gesellschaft München special prize at the 73rd International ARD Cello Competition in 2024.

A former Australian National Young...