Last weekend, one of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions took Bradford by storm.

The city’s elegant St George’s Hall hosted the grand finale of the 21st Leeds International Piano Competition.

Five of the world’s finest young pianists were whittled down from sixty in the International first round and 24 in the second round and semi-finals at Leeds University Great Hall.

Each played a concerto with the esteemed Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under their chief conductor Domingo Hindoyan. The coveted first prize includes worldwide concert engagements, a debut recording contract and a cash prize of £30,000.

Exposure for the host cities is immense. Every note of the competition will be streamed to China and 150 countries worldwide by Medici TV. BBC Radio 3 broadcast as they have since 1966, all performances from the University Great Hall, and the finals - this year from St George’s Hall. Leeds Town Hall is undergoing renovation until late 2025.

Since the conductor and music producer Adam Gatehouse succeeded the indomitable Dame Fanny Waterman as artistic director, the competition has morphed into a vibrant festival, highly visible across Leeds City Centre.

Brand new this year is the ‘Old Royal Pianodrome’, an amphitheatre seating 150 and built from recycled pianos in the Brodrick Hall at Leeds City Museum. A Piano Trail of twelve exotically decorated playable instruments in Leeds’ public spaces was first established for the 2018 Competition. This year the Piano Trail is extended to shopping malls in Bradford and Cliffe Castle, Keighley.

Inside St George’s Hall, the atmosphere crackled with electricity as we awaited each finalist - three men and two women. First up, Julian Trevelyan (UK) played Bartok’s mercurial Concerto No 3. Kai-Min Chan (Taiwan) gave a beautifully nuanced Beethoven No 4. Junyan Chen (China) delivered a dazzling Rachmaninov No 4 and Khanh Nhi Luong (Vietnam) a quicksilver Prokofiev No 3. Lastly, Jaedan Izik-Dzurko (Canada) gave a magisterial account of Brahms’ epic Concert No 2 in B flat.

Comparisons between the relatively dry acoustic of St George’s Hall and the 2.5 seconds reverberation time of Leeds Town Hall are perhaps inevitable. I think the Jury and particularly those finalists playing the Beethoven and Brahms, may have found the slightly smaller Bradford auditorium more helpful.

Dame Imogen Cooper, chairman of the international jury addressed an excited audience: ‘And the winner is....Jaedan Izik-Dzurko’.

The Canadian headed a worthy list of prize winners.