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Of course we know the results now and warm congratulations go to all the finalists and  prizewinners.

My brief thoughts on tonight’s performances are again drawn from notes made during the live stream broadcast. It’s not the same, watching at home. How can it be? One loses the special, palpable excitement, the tremors of anticipation which vibrate through the concert hall and the social spaces around it, but the MediciTV live broadcasts have been excellent. I hope this splendid initiative will continue into the next Leeds Competition.

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Xinyuan Wang

Xinyuan Wang – Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54

A pleasure to hear the Schumann Concerto – it is not performed nearly enough, and Xinyuan Wang brought a warmth and richness to his sound which really suited this heartfelt and deeply romantic music. I felt he really caught the scale and sweep of the work and neatly captured its fleeting, shifting moods and changes of pace. His sound palette was varied and contrasting and he brought a pleasing muscularity to the music, especially in the finale. The second movement had a lovely dialogue with the orchestra and a genial character. The transition had mystery and suspense, though I wanted a little more heorisim in the finale. A poised, assured performance with much communication and rapport with orchestr and conductor. The spontaneous thumbs up by Xinyuan Wang at the end of his performance was rather charming too.

Xinyuan Wang was awarded the MediciTV Audience Prize and Third Prize.

Eric Lu – Beethoven Piano Concerto No.4 in G, Op.58

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Eric Lu

Lu impressed in the earlier rounds – his Chopin B-flat minor Sonata and Fourth Ballade were particularly fine displaying a maturity beyond his 20 years. The Beethoven felt natural and spontaneous with a fantasy-like air to the opening movement. Great clarity and attention to detail, but never at the expense of the expression and character. Lu’s Beethoven was romantic, but never sentimental.

The slow movement had a wonderful contrast between the gruff, punchy interjections by the orchestra and the piano’s serene, calming responses. Again, Lu caught the fleeting moods with exquisite control and tone. The finale was joyful and robust, revealing how Beethoven uses structure and texture rather than pure melody to create drama and excitement. A really thrilling, satisfying, maure and deeply sincere performance.

Eric Lu won the Terence Judd prize, awarded by the Hallé Orchestra  and the Dame Fanny Waterman Gold Medal.

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DEBUT Treehouse presents a special concert in support of Arts 4 Dementia in a unique intimate venue in Shoreditch, with a wonderful line up including the Chagall Piano Quartet, led by award-winning pianist Ian Tindale

Date & time: Sunday 30th September from 6pm

Tickets £25 (includes glass of Prosecco)

Further information and tickets

The Treehouse, a residential apartment in the heart of Shoreditch, is also a hidden bohemian gem of a concert venue. Surrounded by hundreds of fairy lights, beneath a vaulted wooden ceiling with plants draping from the rafters, guests gather casually around a magnificent full-size concert Steinway piano. The Treehouse provides an informal setting and a relaxed ambiance in which to enjoy high-quality classical music.

Arts 4 Dementia believes that people living with dementia and their carers have the right to enjoy life to the full. Participating in arts activity, rekindling and learning new artistic skills enables them to bypass dementia symptoms and enjoy new creative experiences together.

Arts 4 Dementia develops arts programmes to empower, re-energise and inspire people with early-stage dementia and carers through challenging artistic stimulation, to help them live better for longer in their own homes.

DEBUT Treehouse was co-created by Lizzie Holmes (soprano and founder of DEBUT) and Ross Elder (owner of the Shoreditch Treehouse). Since teaming up with Airbnb Experiences in 2017 Lizzie and Ross have hosted over 30 sold out DEBUT Treehouse Concerts to over 1,800 guests and showcased over 125 rising star musicians.

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The crescendo to the final of the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition has been abuzz with activity, commentary and interviews, concerts and masterclasses, and has created a wonderful sense of a shared celebration of all things piano. Many of these activities are the initiative of the new Artistic Directors of the Leeds competition (Adam Gatehouse and Paul Lewis) in a bid to give the competition a wider reach beyond the confines of the concert hall, and even experiencing them at arm’s length, via social media and the broadcasts on MediciTV, I’ve sensed the excitement surrounding the revamped Leeds competition. The addition of a chamber music element to the competition is a very welcome one too, in my opinion, and I agree fully with Adam Gatehouse’s assertion that if one is able to play, connect and communicate with other musicians in a chamber music setting, one is also able to connect and communicate with an orchestra – as the finalists must do in their concerto performances.

MediciTV’s live stream of all the performances has brought an immediacy to those of us who didn’t make it to Leeds in person – the broadcasts are no longer consigned to a discreet evening slot on BBCFour – and also makes the competition feel truly international: anyone can tune in from around the world.

Performances by Aljoša Jurinić (Croatia, aged 29), Anna Geniushene (Russia, aged 27) and Mario Häring (Germany, aged 28) comprised the first evening’s finals concert, and here I offer my brief thoughts (from notes made while watching the live stream broadcast) on the three competitors:

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Aljoša Jurinić

Aljoša Jurinić – Mozart Piano Concerto in C minor, K491

It’s really cheering to see a Mozart concerto in a piano competition final. And this year there are, unusually, no concertos by Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky. A shot of Aljoša Jurinić backstage, chatting to conductor Edward Gardner, showed a young man who looked incredibly chilled and relaxed ahead of one of the most significant performances of his career. This easefulness was translated into his playing which was natural and poised. The first movement had a lovely clarity of articulation and shading, with a good sense of synergy between soloist and orchestra. Jurinić seemed sensitive to the drama and muscularity of this opening movement, creating a sense of spontaneity and improvisation, particularly in the cadenza. The second movement was elegant and good-natured, but the finale felt a little too polite/safe for me. Given that this concerto was completed just before the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro, I felt more operatic drama was needed. But overall, this was a very mature, confident and engaging performance.

Anna Geniushene – Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 in C major, Op.26 

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Anna Geniushene

This for me was a really fine performance – assured, confident, with soul and personality, and a wonderful sense of freedom. My husband, who was half watching in between following la Vuelta (tour of Spain cycling race on his laptop), remarked, without any prompting from me, that he playing was “singing and colourful”. I last heard this concerto performed by Martha Argerich at the Festival Hall in 2016, and I felt Anna brought some of the same excitement, colour and spontaneity to the work, as well as a clear sense of ownership. Her communication with conductor and orchestra was excellent, and the passages where the piano part seems to take flight into its own world were very convincing.

Noriko Ogawa deemed it “a dream concerto!” after the performance – and I agree with her: it was!

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Mario Häring

Mario Häring – Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15

A warm, generous and joyous performance by Mario Häring, with excellent communication with conductor and orchestra. I felt the conductor in particular was really enjoying this work and the pleasure came through, with Mario responding equally in a performance that was lively, precise, colourful and engaging with great clarity and musical sense.

Tonight’s concert features performances by the other two finalists, Eric Lu and Xinyuan Wang.

Follow the Leeds Competition on MediciTV and on Twitter via #LeedsPiano2018

More on the Leeds on this blog:

Leeds preview – in conversation with Jon Jacob

Podcast with Adam Gatehouse

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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?

I did not grow up in a musical family and so started playing the piano relatively late, shortly before I turned 10 years old. I was bought a battery-operated keyboard for Christmas – soon outgrown! – and was instantly gripped. I frequently had to be torn away to do my school homework. The real catalyst for my wanting to pursue a career in music was when I attended by first BBC Prom concert. I was so captivated by the atmosphere, the music, the sound of the orchestra and the grandeur of the Royal Albert Hall!

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

My teachers have, without a shadow of doubt, been the greatest influences on my life as a musician. My first principle piano teacher during my formative years studying at the Purcell School and RCM Junior Department (2001-2007) was Emily Jeffrey, and she has had a remarkable and sustained influence on my life and music-making ever since. Ronan O’Hora, my subsequent teacher is a musician of the highest order whose teaching balances high demand on artistic integrity with a philosophical outlook that enables the individual within to find freedom. My current professor, Eliso Virsaladze, is an extraordinary person (not least because she can demonstrate any repertoire sublimely from memory at the drop of a hat, and that she can speak ten languages fluently!). Her artistry and teaching is legendary the world over, and justly so. It is a tremendous privilege to be able to work with her.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Maintaining the willpower to keep growing and developing all the time takes huge energy, but I suppose it gives a certain type of energy back. In real terms, I sometimes struggle with the public aspect of life as a performer – the need to be your best always, the business of “networking” and actively telling people about your work etc. It is sometimes at odds with my rather more introverted nature. Despite what people may see on the outside, or when I am on stage, I am, in principle, a private person and sensitive to my moods. Sometimes I really want to perform yet there is no concert until next week, and when there is a concert to perform, I just want to lock myself away practise late into the night by candlelight or read a wonderful book!

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

Certain performances stand out as more memorable and for different reasons. In 2007 I performed Rachmaninov’s 2nd Concerto with the RCM Junior Department Symphony Orchestra having won the concerto competition the year before. I would probably dislike many things about that performance were I to listen it now, but I remember feeling at the time that it really represented my work over six years with my first main teacher and was somehow my “graduating” performance. Last year I gave my second recital for the Chopin Society, that time on Chopin’s own Pleyel piano. I just felt a complete sense of abandonment of all physical or psychological inhibitions and felt so engaged with the beauty of the music on the piano Chopin himself had played. It was a magical experience. Also, my latest CD for Willowhayne Records is a source of pride, not least because it features the first recording of Thomas Adès’s Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face other that the composer’s own. It’s a monstrously difficult piece (he’s arranged it for two pianos in the hope of having it played more!).

Which particular works do you think you play best?

Some pieces feel as though they come so much more naturally than others. I remember when I first started studying Chopin’s Barcarolle and his Andante Spianato et grande polonaise brillante, Op. 22 they felt as though I had played them before. It usually depends on my affinity with the qualities of individual pieces and sometimes this can change from day to day. Repertoire is rather like people and friends in that sense.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Mostly this would be wish lists, but I try to find interesting themes, or tailor programmes to suit the requirements of certain organisations. I think being flexible and open to discovery is really important.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

I have been fortunate to have played in some really amazing halls, but the Brahms-Saal of the Musikverein in Vienna and the Philharmonie in Cologne were among the most heavenly experiences. Aesthetic beauty and superb acoustic made them particularly effortless joys. For a pianist, the instrument is every bit as important and, when I was on my ECHO Rising Stars tour, Kawai supplied me with a Shigeru Kawai concert grand (which I had chosen in Germany the year before) and a master piano artisan technician for the concerts. With every venue I could walk out on stage with absolute trust that the instrument would not only respond to my every demand but inspire me further still.

Who are your favourite musicians?

There are too many! At least among the living pianists I would include (in no particular order) Martha Argerich, Richard Goode, Eliso Virsaladze, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Radu Lupu. If I were to talk singers, string players, conductors we’d be here forever! However, I could not fail to mention the likes of Arthur Rubinstein, Cortot, Arrau, Richter, Clara Haskil from the past, however…

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Purely for the fun of it: when the pedal lyre fell off altogether during a Tchaikovsky Concerto and another time when the fire alarm went off during my encore after a Chopin Concerto in Germany. When I played in the same hall the following season I just had to play the same encore to finish it!

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Better for other people to decide!

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Also a difficult question to find a suitable response to, because everybody needs different advice to follow their own unique path. The most important thing may be to have the courage to keep searching for the truth in the music, whatever that may be. Keep your integrity as high as you can, but be flexible and open to discover. Never imitate anyone, least of all yourself. Read lots of books and see as many great paintings as you possibly can!

Ashley Fripp’s CD of music by J S Bach, Ades and Chopin is available now on the Willowhayne Records label.

British pianist Ashley Fripp frequently appears as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, having performed extensively throughout Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Recent international highlights include the Carnegie Hall (New York), Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Philharmonie halls of Cologne, Paris, Luxembourg and Warsaw, the Bozar (Brussels), Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Royal Festival, Barbican and Wigmore Halls (London), the Megaron (Athens), Konserthuset (Stockholm) and the Gulbenkian Auditorium (Lisbon).

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