Alice Van Leuven

Having played over 70 chamber music and solo concerts in the previous season, Alice Van Leuven is a sought after violinist currently based in Brussels. In 2021, she was selected as one of the "Twintigers" (promising Twentysomethings) from radio Klara, the Flemish radio for classical music.

The Alfama Quartet recently appointed Alice as their new first violinist. The quartet is active since 2005 and critically acclaimed in Belgium and abroad. Alice is also a founding member of Trio Aries that won the chamber music competition Supernova Classics in February 2020. The trio recently performed at the Klara Festival in Bozar and had the honor to play the 2021 Spring Concert of the Royal Palace of Brussels. Their debut album "Awakening", recorded in deSingel (Antwerp), has been released in November 2021 and very well received by the national and international press. Despite her young age, Alice appeared already on several renowned international chamber music festivals such as Festival Resonances, Klara Festival, Festival van Vlaanderen, Midi-Minimes, Festival de musique de Dinard, Festival de musique de l'orangerie de Sceaux, Festival en Poitou, Festival Racinotes etc.

Composer Frederik Neyrinck dedicated his piece "Echo de Cleves" for solo violin to Alice, which she premiered in the Henry Leboeuf hall in Bozar (Brussels) in June 2020. As a soloist, Alice performed a few times with the orchestra of the Brussels Conservatory (KCB), Sinfonietta and l'Orchestre de Chambre de la Néthen. She is laureate of different competitions like Belfius Classics where she received a first prize both in the violin category as in the chamber music category. She was finalist of the Young Belgian Talent competition, edition 2015.

Alice graduated from the Universität der Künste in Berlin where she studied in the violin class of Mark Gothoni and in the chamber music class of the Artemis Quartet. Before that she studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Philippe Graffin. She feels particularly grateful to the teachers Alain Meulemans and Erik Sluys who accompanied her from her first steps with the violin to the conservatory. Throughout her studies, Alice also worked with many renowned teachers during masterclasses and festivals across Europe: Les Rencontres Musicales Internationales d'Enghien with Philippe Graffin, Priya Mitchell, David Waterman and Miriam Fried, IMS Prussia Cove (England) with Andras Keller, Bartok Seminar in Szombathely (Hungary) with Barnabas Kelemen, Savonlinna Music Academy (Finland) with Mark Gothoni and the Festival Resonances with Antje Weithaas.

Alice enjoyed much touring with different Belgian and German small-sized orchestras or ensembles like Hofkapelle Weimar South America tour in 2018, Kammeracademie Potsdam on tour in Germany, concerts (among others) at the Rheingau Musikfestival and in the Berliner Philharmonie, Le Concert Olympique with concerts in the Berliner Philarmonie and the Elbphilarmonie Hamburg as well as the Orchester im Treppenhaus in Hannover. She was invited for the Pacific Music Festival (edition 2019) that was founded by Leonard Bernstein and that takes place every year in Japan with artistic director Valery Gergiev.

Since september 2021, Alice is teaching the violin at the Kunsthumaniora Brussel.