We all have a duty to address our impact on the planet and our charity is launching our ambitious Climate & Nature Programme during the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition.
Find out more about our new project to inspire and support our communities, musicians, producers, and audience to become more sustainable, as we commence our mission to reduce and balance our competition’s carbon footprint.
Grow Wild Piano Planters
Community gardening groups all over Leeds and Bradford have been busy, sowing the seeds of environmental change in our beautiful, bio-diverse Piano Planters. Supported by our green-fingered friends at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, 10 upcycled pianos will bloom on the streets of Leeds and Bradford in September, filled with UK native plants, flowers and vegetables. The Grow Wild planters will go back to the community groups who created them after the Festival, to give many years of gardening pleasure in their new homes.
Sustainable Sculpture
One of the most eye-catching elements of the 2024 Programme is our piano sculptures, made by Leeds Piano Trail ‘Artists in Resonance’ Pianodrome. Pick up a Piano Trail Treasure Map from Leeds City Museum and follow your own unique piano journey through the city. You will find pianos past their play-by-date turned inside out and upside down to make new shapes, sounds and stories.
Works such as ‘Sinking Pianos’ and ‘The Elephant in the Room’ are simultaneously beautiful pieces of public art and deeply thought-provoking, exploring the part we play in the climate crisis. The centrepiece is the astonishing Pianodrome Amphitheatre at Leeds City Museum. The entire structure is made from over forty old pianos saved from landfill and has three playable pianos embedded in the sculpture, just waiting to be played. Entry to most events is free and there are daily opportunities to play and experience this incredible structure.
One Small Step in Schools
A SCHOOLS PROJECT FOR CHILDREN AGED 5–7
We launched One Small Step on Earth Day 2023,sharing a joyful and interactive show with KS1 children in 20 Leeds schools. One Small Step weaves music by Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Chopin and Wallen through a narrative about the small steps that even very young children can take to help address the climate crisis. The project gifted a new or repaired piano to each school, and offered teacher training and classroom resources to help non-specialist music teachers bring the music curriculum to life, whilst exploring a range of climate themes with their classes.
One Small Step has already inspired hundreds of children to take climate action and we hope to inspire even more young climate activists in 2025, when we share a film of One Small Step with children all over the UK and US, in partnership with the Lang Lang International Music Foundation
Championing A Competition for Today & Tomorrow
“EDUCATION IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL WAYS WE CAN HELP PEOPLE MAKE MORE SUSTAINABLE CHOICES”
Since 2021, we have been working with the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds to minimise our carbon footprint and support our piano family to limit the effects of climate change. Every area has been reduced. You won’t find lots of merchandise at this year’s competition, and we are using sustainable suppliers for the items we do produce. We are reducing the printing of all our publicity materials, including a more sustainable Souvenir Programme Book. Education is one of the most powerful ways we can help people make more sustainable choices, and the competitors, jurors and production crew are taking up this mission with us. We developed our ‘Green Rider’ for artists, will provide sustainable menus and accommodation, and have encouraged everyone to travel to Leeds in a climate-friendly way.
For the first time, we will be measuring our digital emissions, as the streaming and storage of our amazing performances also have their own environmental impact. By hosting a digital First Round instead of flying 64 Competitors to Leeds, we dramatically reduced our carbon footprint — we saved the amount of carbon it would take 600 trees ten years to absorb.
By sharing our progress with other international music competitions, we hope to encourage similar commitments and collectively shift the dial
Accelerate Action on Climate Change
We are going the extra mile to make a more positive impact on our planet. At the end of the 2024 Competition, our whole team will be volunteering for a rewilding initiative in our local community, and we invite all our supporters and stakeholders to join us for this weekend of positive action.
By making a commitment to improving our local environment, with every competition cycle we are helping to nurture our beautiful county, as much as we nurture our artists.
