JURY TALK: GILLES LEDURE

Being Chair of the jury in Brussels is very different from other competitions. Can you describe your role?

The most important thing: it´s both an organising role and a musical one. But I don't vote. The Queen Elisabeth Competition has a very sophisticated and refined voting system. There is no discussion, no deliberation whatsoever. Everyone stays individual and anonymous. Voting takes place in a different way after each round; once the points have been given, that stage of the competition is finished. The points won´t count for the following round; each stage begins completely anew.

As Chairman, I have two main tasks: Firstly, organising the artistic side of the competition together with the Artistic Committee: the program, the rules, and the jury. This takes a lot of time, but in the end the competition has to run like a swiss clock and nothing is left to chance. Secondly, during the competition, I am the organiser, the „host“, so to speak, for the jury. Of course, I do some announcements and "thank you" speeches. But the main task is to take care of all issues in and around the jury. They can come to me 24 hours a day with any questions, worries, suggestions, remarks, knowing that any issue will stay between me and them. We can talk in a most private and confidential way. It's a diplomatic job, a psychological job, a „protector of the game“, and it's really an invisible role that no one notices in the audience. I will never influence their decisions, I am not talking about who may come in First, Second, Third etc.

Could you give an example of such an issue?

One question that is asked quite often is “according to which standards are candidates accepted?“ where I have to argue and remind jurors that they are part of a bigger process, a „collective action“, so to speak. It's essential to preserve the stability and credibility of the jury. Our competition takes a whole month, and not all jurors can attend all roundsthat´s why points are not accumulated over more than one round. But to make this system work, every juror has to stay at least one week. If he or she leaves even only for one hour during this week, their vote will not count and they will be excluded. For example, if during this long process someone needs to travel home for private reasons: their points are not taken into account. In any case- we aim to have as many people as possible on the jury.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition was one of the first to impose a new rule: not mentioning nationalities of the candidates. How was this accepted by the audience?

The reaction was very positive. The war in Ukraine pushed us to do this, but of course nowadays, the meaning of „nationality“ has changed a lot. You can ask yourself whether it makes sense to call someone American, Belgian, or Japanese, when that person´s roots are multicultural. For example: Someone is called an American but his mother is really Canadian, the grandparents are Japanese, he has studied in Munich then went to live in Koreado you still call him American? Today's artists are citizens of the world!

Of course, we still keep the nationality somewhere further down in the biographies. We don't want to take it away from people completely. But it should not be the only thing to identify them with. Putting a country right behind someone's name does not say anything about that person's quality or character. It only may invite prejudice.

Of course, our foremost reason for this new rule was that we didn't want to punish Russian artists. We had long discussions about this subject and finally worked out a statement for our audience in which we explained our stance.

Since its inception, the rules of the Competition have stipulated that “a candidate cannot be rejected on any ideological, linguistic, political, religious, or racial basis." All young artists will be welcomed, whatever their nationality.

In these troubled times, when some people are quick to use culture and the arts for nationalist and warlike ends, we believe, on the contrary, that the arts must continue to unite people around universal values such as peace, justice, and freedom.

Statement of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, March 2022

You served as Chairman for three disciplines: Violin, Cello, and Piano. How are the juries different for these three instruments?

That´s a very dangerous question (laughs). Not easy to answer without getting oneself in a viola joke mood… for me, working with all three was a tremendous pleasure. Of course, every jury has a different group dynamic. Violinists may often act as soloists; pianists can be individualists; cellists may sometimes be closer to each other within the group. I think it has to do with the repertoire for that instrument: piano has the biggest repertoire, for example, so there are a lot of individual references about the importance of a certain work or composer. But for me, a great jury is one where everyone is humble, and generous- eager to listen and enthusiastic about their younger colleaguesand their future.