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Leeds International Piano Competition
Leeds International Piano Competition
Awarded for	Exceptional piano performance
Location	Great Hall of the University of Leeds; Leeds Town Hall; (St George's Hall, Bradford in 2024)
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	Leeds International Piano Competition
Formerly called	Leeds International Pianoforte Competition
First awarded	1963; 62 years ago
Last awarded	2024
Website	www.leedspiano.com

The Leeds International Piano Competition, informally known as The Leeds and formerly the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition,^[1]^[2] is an international piano competition which takes place every three years in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1961 by Marion, Countess of Harewood, Dame Fanny Waterman and Roslyn Lyons, with the first competition being held in 1963. Waterman was the chair and artistic director up to the 2015 competition when Paul Lewis and Adam Gatehouse became Co-Artistic Directors.

The first round of the competition takes place internationally and in 2021 went 'virtual' when 63 pianists were recorded in 17 international locations and the Jury deliberated online, in order to circumvent the various impacts of Covid. The 21st Edition in 2024 held the First Round in six international locations, after receiving a record 366 applications. The Second Round and Semi-finals take place in the Great Hall of the University of Leeds. The Concerto Finals of the 2024 Competition exceptionally took place at St George's Hall, Bradford while Leeds Town Hall underwent major refurbishment.^[3]

Since 2018, the Competition has reach a global audience through its broadcasting, achieving over 10.2 million views in 2024 through multiple channels and platforms, including BBC Four, BBC Radio 3, medici.tv, Amadeus.tv (China), Classic FM and Mezzo.tv.

History

The competition was first held in September 1963 when the young British pianist, Michael Roll, became the First Prizewinner. It joined the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC) in 1965.^[2] After the 1996 competition, there was a four-year break before the 2000 competition, to align with the turn of the millennium. Competitors were formerly housed at Tetley Hall, a residence hall at the University of Leeds, which closed in 2006 and are still housed in University residences throughout the competition. The University of Leeds is the Principal Partner of the competition and has supported it since its inception. The BBC has broadcast all Competitions since 1966 on television and radio. In 2018 the Competition was streamed live online for the first time with medici.tv.

The list of eminent past Competition winners includes Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia. The roll call of other Competition finalists is equally illustrious as that of the winners and includes Mitsuko Uchida and Sir Andras Schiff (1975), Peter Donohoe (1981), Louis Lortie (1984), Lars Vogt (1990), Denis Kozhukhin (2006) and Louis Schwizgebel (2012) when Federico Colli won the Gold Medal. Sofya Gulyak was the first female first prize winner, awarded in 2009.^[4]

Dame Fanny Waterman was the competition's Chair and Artistic Director until her retirement after the 2015 event and she remained Honorary Life President until her death in 2020. She was replaced as artistic director by Paul Lewis (Jury Chair for 2018) and Adam Gatehouse. Gatehouse is now the competition's sole Artistic Director and was joined by Imogen Cooper as Chair of the Jury in 2021.

2018 Competition

The 2018 competition marked a major refresh to the competition structure:

The preliminary round of the competition took place internationally for the first time in Berlin, New York and Singapore.
The semi-finalists offered two different recitals (one was chosen by the jury) and included the introduction of chamber music in a new collaborative musicianship feature, working with Bjørg Lewis (cello), Jack Liebeck (violin) and the Elias String Quartet.
The concerto finale included five finalists in concert with the Hallé orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner. Finalists offered two concertos, one "classically oriented"^[5] and one from the Romantic period or later, and one was selected for performance by the jury.
Three main prizes were awarded, as well as the Terence Judd Hallé Orchestra Prize and a new medici.tv audience prize, which was voted for online.
A festival programme in Leeds was introduced to bring The Leeds out of the concert hall and into the community.
Medici.tv livestreamed all rounds which remain free to view on the competition microsite.

The prize benefits were redesigned to support the career development of the prizewinners and include mentoring by Paul Lewis and other notable pianists, as well as artist management with Askonas Holt, a recording deal with Warner Classics and a series of international engagements.

A festival programme of masterclasses, talks, educational events and other activities also took place during the competition, including an appearance by Alfred Brendel, free piano lessons in the world's Smallest Concert Hall (a converted shipping container) and the creation of The Leeds Piano Trail across Leeds city centre (pianos for the public to use), supported by The Leeds BID.^[6]^[5]

Orchestra

The concerto finals have been supported by a number of major UK orchestras over the years including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé. Sir Mark Elder has conducted the Hallé Orchestra at all the finals since 2003, with the exception of 2018 when the conductor was Edward Gardner. Other conductors with long associations with the Competition have included Sir Charles Groves and Sir Simon Rattle. The Terence Judd Hallé Orchestra Prize, selected and awarded by the orchestra to one of the six finalists, was awarded in 2012-2018. A new partnership with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra was announced in 2019 for the 20th Edition in 2021, and the orchestra awards the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society Prize for the best performance of a contemporary work. Following this award in 2021 to Gold Medallist Alim Beisembayev, the RLPO commissioned a piano concerto from the distinguished composer, Eleanor Alberga.

Hallé Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder (2003–2018)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle (1987–2000)
BBC Philharmonic with Sir Vernon Handley (1984)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with Sir John Pritchard and Sir Charles Groves (1963–1975), Andrew Manze (2021), & Domingo Hindoyan (2024)

Prize winners

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place	4th place	5th place	6th place
2024	Jaeden Izik-Dzurko	Junyan Chen^[a]	Khanh Nhi Luong	Kai-Min Chang	Julian Trevelyan	—
2021	Alim Beisembayev^[b]	Kaito Kobayashi^[a]	Ariel Lanyi	Dmytro Choni	Thomas Kelly	—
2018	Eric Lu^[c]	Mario Häring^[a]	Xinyuan Wang^[b]	— (Finalists: Aljoša Jurinić, Anna Geniushene)
2015	Anna Tsybuleva	Heejae Kim^[c]	Vitaly Pisarenko	Drew Petersen	Tomoki Kitamura	Yun Wei
2012	Federico Colli	Louis Schwizgebel	Jiayan Sun	Andrejs Osokins	Andrew Tyson^[c]	Jayson Gillham
2009	Sofya Gulyak	Alexej Gorlatch	Alessandro Taverna	David Kadouch	Rachel Cheung	Jianing Kong
2006	Sunwook Kim	Andrew Brownell	Denis Kozhukhin	Alice Wong	Sung-hoon Kim	Grace Fong
2003	Antti Siirala	Evgenia Rubinova	Yuma Osaki	Igor Tchetuev	Chiao-Ying Chang	/ Sodi Braide
2000	Alessio Bax	Davide Franceschetti	Severin von Eckardstein	Cristiano Burato	Ashley Wass	Tatiana Kolesova
1996	Ilya Itin	Roberto Cominati	Aleksandar Madžar	Sa Chen	Armen Babakhanian	Ekaterina Apekisheva
1993	Ricardo Castro	Leon McCawley	Mark Anderson	Filippo Gamba	Maxim Philippov	Margarita Shevchenko
1990	Artur Pizarro	Lars Vogt	Éric Le Sage	Balázs Szokolay	Haesun Paik	Andrei Zheltonog
1987	Vladimir Ovchinnikov	Ian Munro	Noriko Ogawa	Boris Berezovsky	Hugh Tinney	Marcantonio Barone
1984	Jon Kimura Parker	Ju Hee Suh	Junko Otake	Louis Lortie	David Buechner	Emma Tahmizian
1981	Ian Hobson	Wolfgang Manz	Bernard d'Ascoli	Daniel Blumenthal	Christopher O'Riley	Peter Donohoe
1978	Michel Dalberto	Diana Kacso	Lydia Artymiw	Ian Hobson	Kathryn Stott	Etsuko Terada
1975	Dmitri Alexeev	Mitsuko Uchida	Joint 3rd prize:^[1] András Schiff Pascal Devoyon	Joint 4th prize:^[1] Michael Houstoun Myung-whun Chung	—
1972	Murray Perahia	Craig Sheppard	Eugen Indjic	—
1969	Radu Lupu	Georges Pludermacher	Arthur Moreira Lima	Boris Petrushansky	Anne Queffélec	—
1966	Rafael Orozco	Joint 2nd prize: Viktoria Postnikova Semyon Kruchin	Alexey Nasedkin^[1]	Jean-Rodolphe Kars	—
1963	Michael Roll	Vladimir Krainev	Sebastien Risler	Armenta Adams	—