Virgile Van Essche

Virgile Van Essche is a Belgian pianist who studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Saint Petersburg, the Royal Academy in London, and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. After completing his piano studies in Russia, Virgile began specializing in collaborative piano in England, a field he later refined at the CRB before earning a master’s degree in pianoforte there. He is passionate about accompaniment and chamber music, and has a keen interest in the various types of keyboard instruments from the Classical and Romantic periods. He owns a 6-octave Viennese pianoforte (a copy by Robert Brown) and an original Bechstein piano from 1873.

Virgile has had the privilege of participating in renowned courses, including the Georg Solti Academia for Repetiteurs (Venice, Italy, 2018), the North Sea Vocal Academy (Thu, Denmark, 2019), and the Udo Reinemann International Masterclasses (Brussels, La Monnaie/De Munt, 2019–20 season).

His musical collaborations have been recognized at international competitions. Alongside Mariamielle Lamagat (soprano, FR), he won four prizes by unanimous decision of the jury at the 11th “Les saisons de la voix” International Art Song Competition (Gordes, FR). He also won third prize in the Lied category at the 5th “Triomphe de l’Art” International Competition (Brussels) in a duet with Tina Drole (mezzo-soprano, SLO). Together with soprano Juliette Allen, he forms a duo whose performances on Belgian and French stages have garnered attention. Recently, they were among the finalists in the duo category at the 28th Clermont Auvergne Opera Competition. That same year, Virgile also reached the finals of the Sibelius Singing Lied Competition, held every five years in Järvenpää, Finland, alongside Dutch tenor Mitch Raemaekers.

He has performed at renowned venues such as the Glinka Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg, the M Hall at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Alfred Cortot Hall in Paris, and St. James’s Church on Piccadilly (London). He is a regular guest at the summer festivals “Les estivales lyriques de Wissant” (FR) and “Il pleut des cordes” in Malmedy (BE), as well as the “Académies du Grand Paris” (Vincennes, FR). As part of the ELW program, he performs the orchestral part on piano in the concert versions of the operas *Faust* (2022), *The Abduction from the Seraglio*, *The Barber of Seville* (both in 2023), and *La Clemenza di Tito* (2025).

Virgile is a faculty member at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Liège (Belgium) and the Paul Baudouin Michel Academy of Music in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (Brussels).