The six finalists for the 17th Leeds International Piano Competition have been announced.
Chosen by a jury headed by Dame Fanny Waterman, the competition’s artistic director, the finalists are Federico Colli from Italy (24), Jayson Gillham from Australia (26), Andrejs Osokins from Latvia (27), Louis Schwizgebel from Switzerland (24), Jiayan Sun from China (22) and Andrew Tyson from the USA (25).
Leeds Town Hall will host the final round on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 September, which will be a programme of concertos including Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth, Rachmaninov’s Third and Prokoviev’s Second and Third Piano Concertos, all accompanied by the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
Radio 3 will broadcast all the performances live and the result of the competition at 11.55pm on Saturday 15 September. A gala concert will also be broadcast the following day at 2pm from the Great Hall of the University of Leeds.
BBC Four will be showing the final stages of the competition in weekly instalments from Friday 21 September. This year the competition is also acting as a gateway to the Piano Season on the BBC, which runs from Friday 15 September – Tuesday 6 November across Radio 3, BBC Four and BBC One.
For further information about the competition, please visit www.leedspiano.com
Gareth Thomas