24 pianists announced for Leeds International Piano Competition

The Leeds International Piano Competition has announced the 24 pianists who have reached the second round of the competition.

Selected from a pool of outstanding 20-29-year-old talent from around the world who took part in the first round in six global centers last month, these pianists now compete for top honors in Leeds in September 2024. This marks the chance their. to have a transformative and enriching experience in Leeds and the opportunity to win one of the most prestigious awards in music.

Nine (38%) of the finalists are women, an increase from the first round where women made up 31% of the contestants. This partly reflects new measures introduced by The Leeds to help tackle gender balance issues in the piano world, including blind judging in the selection process and jury training on unconscious bias.

The 24 pianists are:

Kai-Min Chang, 23, Taiwan

Xuehong Chen, 24, China

Junyan Chen, 23, China

Woo Young Cho, 23, South Korea

Dina Ivanova, 29 years old, Russia

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, 24, Canada

Carter Johnson, 27, Canada

Elizaveta Kliuchereva, 24, Russia

Shinyoung Lee, 26, South Korea

Pedro López Salas, 26, Spain

Khanh Nhi Luong, 27, Vietnam

Philipp Lynov, 25, Russia

Nicholas Margarit, 24, Australia

Nagino Maruyama, 24, Japan

Callum McLachlan Page, 25, UK

Jan Nikovich, 22, Croatia

Tianlin Shen, 25, China

Shunshun Tie, 23, China

Tomoharu Ushida, 24, Japan

Gabriel Yeo, 25, Germany

Sung Ho Yoo, 27, South Korea

Tiankai Yu, 24, China

Angie Zhang, 28, America

Ryan Zhu 20 years old, Canada

Fiona Sinclair, CEO of The Leeds, comments: “We are delighted to announce the 24 pianists who will be competing in the next round of the Competition in 2024 and we look forward to welcoming them all to Leeds to perform. I am particularly pleased to see that we have a strong proportion of women coming through, a testament to the measures we have put in place this year. I wish all the competitors the best of luck and I look forward to seeing them in Leeds!”

For the first time, the final of the competition will move outside the city due to renovations at Leeds Town Hall. The venue for the final will be Bradford’s historic St George’s Hall, known for its excellent ‘shoebox’ acoustics. The move coincides with Bradford’s status as ‘UK City of Culture in 2025’ and the Competition provides an opportunity to share music made in Leeds and Bradford with a global audience of millions via multiple streaming services including medici.tv and BBC.

Tickets for the second round, semi-finals and finals are available on the Leeds International Piano Competition website.