Page 282 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Bradford itself has the best alongside the worst, Leeds having sucked away a lot of the finances and the
nightlife. Not enough will change by 2025, when it becomes UK City of Culture (imagine what might have been
achieved if we were still within the EU). Between the Victorian grandeur, much of it still standing empty, are
whole central streets of vape and mobile phone shops, nail bars and sub-Leeds drinking dens; homelessness is
apparent, and only the Pakistani Muslim community has a healthy look (among the superb, value-for-money
restaurants are the self-service Karachi and the glitzier International, heaving at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon).
Within St George’s Hall on Friday and Saturday, though, prosperity was on display. Glamour, too, given
Hindoyan’s stylish conducting. Barbirolli may have been overstating the mark when he described the auditorium
as the best in Europe; it’s a tad dry, but Hindoyan drew silky, atmospheric pianissimos from the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic. The first evening began with outsider (reserve list) British pianist Julian Trevelyan’s splendid
choice of Bartók’s nostalgic swansong Third Piano Concerto. His handling of the first movement was too mezzo-
fortist, not nuanced enough, but there was magical rapport with the orchestra in the American country idylls of
the slow movement, and the quick-change dances of the finale all held together well. (Pictured below: the five
finalists: Trevelyan, Khanh Nhi Luong, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, Junyan Chen and Kai-Min Chang).