THE LEEDS INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION
Leeds Town Hall © Simon Wilkinson
The Leeds
The Leeds International Piano Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious, and Askonas Holt is thrilled to be in partnership with the competition. Claire Jackson spoke to co-Artistic Director Adam Gatehouse & Gaetan Le Divelec, Director of Askonas Holt to find out more This year’s instalment will be the first with co-Artistic Directors Paul Lewis and Adam Gatehouse at the helm. Adam, what new developments can we expect? Adam Gatehouse (AG): Well, The Leeds has always had a place in the top pantheon of competitions. What we felt was lacking was a way of reaching out to the world. We used to bring the world to Leeds – which is a wonderful town in the north of England – but we felt that The Leeds needed to reach out to the world. We brought the first round back in April
22 The Green Room Autumn 2018
out to Berlin, Singapore and New York, those being the three centres from which we draw our competitors, and, for the first time we are streaming the competition online through medici.tv. Through them we will be able to reach an audience of millions – probably a greater audience in this one competition than we’ve brought in the 55 years of the competition’s history. Crucially, I think, we have developed a prize package which is very valuable: partnerships with organisations like the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Oslo
Philharmonic, Warner Classics, and, really crucially, the partnership we’re developing with Askonas Holt, which will ensure artist management for one of the winners. It’s really important that this prize package is designed with the pianist’s long-term career in mind. How will Askonas Holt’s management do this? Gaetan Le Divelec (GLD): We would always take a long-term view of an artist’s career, particularly a young artist. We take an artist-centred approach, so what we do will very
