Composer Competition

Noah Z. Værum is a Danish composer, arranger, and clarinetist who has quickly emerged as a distinctive voice in the country’s wind-band tradition. Raised in Copenhagen, he began his musical journey at an early age and developed his craft through formative roles with the Tivoli Gardens Youth Guard, where he served in key musical and leadership positions.

His music reflects both strong craftsmanship and a deep affinity for the Danish ceremonial style, with works such as Tivoli-Gardens Parademarch, Honnør for Amalienborg, and King Frederik VIII’s Salute March. In addition to writing for ensembles across Denmark, he is an award-winning composer and active performer, known for his engaging personality and dedication to bringing new audiences to the wind-band tradition.

Kacper Madejek is an award-winning Polish composer, educator, and multi-instrumentalist, and a graduate of New York University and the Yale School of Music. A trained pianist, electronic musician, and baritone, he has studied with leading composers including David Lang, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Katherine Balch, and Martin Bresnick.

His music explores why we care about sound, creating transparent, contemplative spaces that connect emotion, imagery, narrative, and text. Alongside his compositional work, he is an active scholar of contemporary and electroacoustic music, with published research and professional experience spanning music production, sound recording, audiobook publishing, and film scoring.

Wirth began composing as a young child, performing his own music at a local children’s theatre. Upon graduating high school, he organised a farewell concert featuring a 40-player orchestra and choir performing his first symphony, his flute concerto and two cantatas. 

Wirth studied under Axel Seidelmann, Maestro Uros Lajovic and Maestro Simeon Pironkoff at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He also studied under Csaba Kutnyánszky at the Ferenc Liszt Music University in Budapest, and attended master courses with Maestro Seiji Ozawa, Prof. Paul Crabb and Peter Schreier. 

In his own time he has performed his own pieces with friends, choirs and his own orchestra. He also founded an opera ensemble to perform his opera in Pécs and Budapest. Wirth lives in Iceland, where he serves as a music director at the Catholic Church of Iceland and performs his own sacred pieces on a weekly basis with his choir. 

Born here in Brussels, Ruben Van Eldik is a 14-year old composer who lives in Tervuren with his family. His love for music was apparent early on in his life. 

He began playing the piano at the age of 11 and, a year later, embarked on piano lessons with John Gevaert at the APKO academy. At 12, Ruben began to compose music. Now, at 14, he is studying at the KSO Lemmens Institute in Leuven.  

When the BCE launched its second composition competition, Ruben entered – and won – with his stunning piece “Espoir”, a mesmerising impressionistic work, inspired by Anna Boch’s painting ‘Les falaises de l’Estérel’. 

Adrián Fuentes Flores was born in Málaga in 1998 and started studying the piano at the age of six. He studied the piano in Málaga and Badajoz with Daniel Ábalos and Ángel Sanzo, finishing his bachelor’s degree with the main two obtainable prizes: Best Academic Record Award and Extraordinary End of Studies Award. His pianistic education then continued in Belgium. He finished a master’s degree in piano at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles this year, studying under Johan Schmidt. For his master’s degree he received a Grand Distinction.

For our Spain-themed concert, Fuentes Flores composed an astounding piece, his ‘Suite Andaluza’, that draws heavily from flamenco culture and cites Albéniz and de Falla as his major inspiration.

Adrián also works as a music score editor, having edited more than thirty works for individuals and companies in Spain. He has recently graduated from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles with a master’s degree in piano playing.