The Leeds International Piano Competition- Music is all around you!

Hello everyone, my name is Khanh, today I will introduce to you the Leeds International Piano Competition and share some of my personal experiences from joining some of the events over the past couple of weeks.

The Leeds International Piano Competition, known as The Leeds, was founded nearly 60 years ago, in 1961, by Dame Fanny Waterman with the aim to encourage young talented piano players to showcase their talents, passion and create a supportive environment where these young pianists develop a future career as professional pianists/musicians. Since its foundation, The Leeds International Piano Competition has significantly supported the career development of many young talented pianists of our time. Furthermore, the competition aims to inspire, connect and engage wider audiences into the magical world of piano and music in general. Therefore, besides organising the competition, the Leeds International Piano Competition also organise different social events for the public to learn and explore more about the history of the piano, the importance of music to our lives or sometimes just simply enjoy street piano performance.

The competition includes typically 4 rounds: first, second, semi-finals and finals. This year, the first round took place in March and April in different 16 cities all around the world, such as London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, New York, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. The second round, semi-finals and finals took place from 8-18 September in The Great Hall of The University of Leeds. The University of Leeds has been a long-established, principal partner of the competition and has supported the competition since its establishment. This year, 23 young pianists from 18 countries were selected to compete in Leeds. With 23 competitors from 18 countries including Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Germany, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine & UK, the competition experienced the richest diversity ever since it was founded 60 years ago.

Within 2 weeks (8-18 September 2021), besides the competition, there were many free social events included in “The Leeds Piano Trail” that took place all around Leeds city so that everyone could join in and explore more about piano and music in general. You can learn more about what kinds of events that had been taken place all around Leeds through this website.

Moreover, if you live in Leeds, you must have easily noticed many pianos that have been placed everywhere in The University of Leeds campus and the city centre: Leeds Trinity, Leeds Train Station and Leeds Kirkgate Market. Within the last 2 weeks, there have been many street piano performances by different artists and musicians. This kind of piano display and performance were also parts of “The Leeds Piano Trail”, aiming to bring piano, musicians and piano performance closer to the public. Here are some of the pictures of piano display all around Leeds:

While the competition was happening, I had the chance to join in 2 unique events of The Leeds Piano Trail: Jazz Sessions at Headrow House Beer Hall and Talk session “Nature in Music & Music in Nature’ in Playhouse Garden. 

THE LEEDS PIANO TRAIL | Jazz Sessions at Headrow House Beer Hall.

I am a big fan of Jazz, for that reason, when I figured out about this free Jazz performance happening at Headrow Beer Hall-one of my favourite hang-out places in Leeds, I was thrilled. The event occurred from 7pm until 9pm, performed by students from Leeds Conservatoire. It was a lovely night filled with Jazz music. My friends and I really enjoyed the music, and we ordered the well-known kebab made by Ox Club, which has been featured in the Michelin Guide 2020 and Good Food Guide 2020. The night was perfect with Jazz tunes performance, delicious kebab and beautifully decorated beer hall in Headrow House. 

THE LEEDS PIANO TRAIL | Talks: Nature in Music, Music in Nature at Playhouse Gardens.

One of the most exciting events within the Leeds Piano Trail is an event called “Nature in Music and Music in Nature”, which took place at Playhouse Garden. The session was a combination of inspirational talks by the host-Oscar and a live piano performance by Owen- a talented Tabor Piano Ambassadors with the aim to help the audiences understand and explore the strong relationship between music and surrounding spaces around them. I really liked the fact that parts of the live performance were utterly spontaneous, meaning that Owen- the pianist just instantly created some melody in his head after observing and feeling the nature and surrounding spaces around him. From the improvisational performance by Owen, I realised that nature and music are strongly connected as musicians view nature as their inspirations and turn those inspirations into sounds, melody to feature their thoughts and feelings.

In conclusion, within the last 2 weeks, both the city itself and the University of Leeds were happily filled with musical spirits and piano performance thanks to The Leeds Piano Competition. I  want to thank all the contestants, piano players, performers, and organising teams of The Leeds Piano Competition for making it happen and bringing music closer to us than ever before.