Akari Bastiaens on the piano

The 13-year-old Akari Bastiaens got her first stage experience at the age of five. Her exceptional talent for the piano became apparent very early on, which manifested even more clearly when she won the Steinway Pianowedstrijd Belgi at the age of six. In addition to the first prize in her age category, she also received the Steinway & Sons prize, with which she was allowed to represent Belgium at the international Steinway Festival in Hamburg. This early recognition formed the beginning of a remarkable trajectory. Since then, Akari has achieved numerous successes at national and international piano competitions, where she has been repeatedly awarded first prizes and special distinctions. In 2023, she won the first prize and the Mozart prize for the best interpretation of a work by Mozart at the international piano competition MozArte in Aachen. A year later, the first prize, the press prize, and the audience prize followed at the Internationaal Pianoconcours for Jonge Musici in Enschede. In 2025, her artistic maturity was again underlined with the first prize, the press prize, and the audience prize at the Prinses Christina Concours, as well as with the first prize at the Internationaal Chopinconcours for Youth in Szafarnia. The jury praised her poetic and stylistically extremely pure performance of Chopins Tweede Ballade.