Page 850 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Adam Gatehouse, Artistic Director of Leeds International Piano
Competiton. Picture: Simon Jay Price

“There was no talk at the time of us being co-artistic directors, they just
wanted our advice as to how we thought a competition like the Leeds could

best go forward,” he recalls. “So we sat down and looked at it hard, because

I’d already been on the jury twice, to see what we felt the competition
needed.

“One of our priorities was we wanted to make it as humane as possible.
Competitions can be very cut-throat and can have quite a vicious

competitive atmosphere to them; we wanted to make that as humane as

possible so that the experience for the competitors coming was as gentle as
possible.”

Another priority was to grow its audience internationally. “I was first on the
jury in 2012 and I realised (then) that the elite world of classical music

competitions knew about it but nobody in the city had the faintest idea a)

that it existed and b) that it was happening at the time. There weren’t any
posters, there were no banners, there was nothing. It was partly broadcast