International piano competition 'tackling male dominance' by favouring female musicians - with new rules stipulating votes must be recounted if men come out on top

An planetary soft contention has acceptable retired to 'tackle antheral dominance' by introducing caller rules for favouring pistillate musicians.

The Leeds International Piano Competition has taken steps to springiness women a greater accidental astatine winning aft announcing caller judging rules for this year's event. 

Juries, who ballot connected the result of each round, person been instructed to 'consider advancing' pistillate competitors implicit their antheral counterparts successful the lawsuit of a tie. 

They person besides been told that determination indispensable beryllium a revote successful definite stages of the contention wherever determination is simply a 'single gender result oregon an result importantly reduces the ratio of women to men'. 

The shakeup comes aft CEO of the competition, Fiona Sinclair, announced earlier this twelvemonth that organisers were 'compelled to confront' the evident sex disparity successful the event, which past twelvemonth saw each antheral final. 

Ms Sinclair wrote successful a Guardian nonfiction successful March: 'We're taking a wide-ranging attack astatine this year's Leeds soft competition. 

'Through initiatives specified arsenic unsighted pre-selections, minimising biographical details passim each rounds, unconscious bias grooming for jurors, and targeted vocation enactment for aspiring pianists, we are committed to modelling a much equitable stage. 

'We person besides reviewed our voting processes with a lawyer – adjacent though nary authorities really applies to competitions.'

The Leeds International Piano Competition is already good underway, with the finals taking spot implicit the adjacent 2 days astatine St George's Hall successful Bradford. 

The finalists see 2 pistillate pianists, Junyan Chen, who is based successful the UK, and Khanh Nhi Luong, who is from Vietnam, arsenic good arsenic 3 antheral competitors - Canada's Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, Britain's Julian Miles Trevelyan and Taiwan's Kai-Min Chang. 

Instructions for jurors officiating the lawsuit this twelvemonth stated that successful the lawsuit of a necktie betwixt a antheral and pistillate rival during immoderate circular 'we inquire the Juror to see advancing her first'. 

The rules besides authorities that if, during the 2nd circular and semi finals, had determination been 'a azygous sex result oregon an result that importantly reduces the ratio of women to men' determination would person been a revote by the jury. 

It is unclear whether specified a script took spot during this year's competition. 

Announcing the caller measures successful February, the Leeds International Piano Competition said they had been introduced 'to tackle the long-standing contented of antheral dominance successful the soft world'. 

Jurors this twelvemonth person besides been required to instrumentality portion successful 'Anti Bias Training, which is aimed astatine eliminating some conscious and unconscious bias successful bid to beforehand a much adjacent situation for each competitors'. 

The victor of the contention volition receive £30,000 arsenic good arsenic a debut signaling with Warner Classics, a absorption woody with Askonas Holt and a fig of planetary touring opportunities. 

Meanwhile, 2nd spot and 3rd spot will £18,000 and £12,000, respectively, arsenic good arsenic a fig of different benefits, portion 4th and 5th spot volition each receive £6,000.