Leeds competition will tilt towards women

From today’s Observer newspaper:

Fiona Sinclair, chief executive of the Leeds International Piano Com­petition, told the Observer that female pianists are failing to reach the top of their profession despite an equal number of men and women now training at conservatoires.

She said: “Fewer than 23% of career pianists are women, yet in the conservatoires it’s roughly 50:50. As they leave college, the men soar while the women are not getting opportunities. The more we get into actual statistics, it’s clear that something’s broken. The problem persists at the top piano level – festivals, recordings, venues – with men generally dominating everything.”

Sinclair said they needed to take action as “only 18% of the most recent top 40 international piano competitions have been won by women”.

Odd – is it not? – that the world’s most sought-after classical pianists appear to be:

1 Yuja Wang

2 Martha Argerich

3 Mitsuko Uchida

4 Khatia Buniatishvili

5 Gabriela Montero

6 Helene Grimaud

7 Beatrice Rana

8 Maria-Joao Pires

9 Alice Sara Ott

10 Eva Gevorgyan (pictured)