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00:06Andrea, hello. Hello, Virginia. Oh, I can't wait to talk to you about your life at the
00:11piano because it really has been your whole life from a very young age, hasn't it? I don't
00:16remember life without the piano. It's always been there in every moment. Yes, but you don't
00:21like the term prodigy. I am someone who loves music and showed an early talent for it, but
00:28I wouldn't say prodigy. Now, I will be the judge of that. You're not just a player. You're
00:34a teacher. You're a collaborator. You're a recording artist. And all of those connections are really
00:39important to you, aren't they? I just find that every aspect of music inspires the other.
00:44So I feel so lucky to have all these different tendrils of music going on. Well, I know you
00:48like to work out the music you're going to play in your time alone. Do you mind if I come
00:53and crash your alone time? Oh, please. I love sharing my alone time.
00:59Good. Okay. I'll see you then. I can't wait. Bye.
01:05I'm Virginia Trioli, and I've spent my life paying attention to creative Australians and
01:10wondering what is going on in that wild mind of theirs?
01:16In this series, I'll showcase artists and performers at the peak of their powers and tell
01:21the story of their triumphs, their stumbles, and why they make the glorious work we love so
01:27much. Andrea Lam is one of Australia's finest classical pianists. She made her debut with
01:35the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the age of 13 before embarking on a distinguished international
01:41career. Now she finds a new skill as a mentor.
01:45She's fantastic. As a teacher. I kind of want you to throw that all out the window a little
01:51bit. And as a star of the hit ABC TV show, The Piano. There's something special going on.
01:56It's incredible. Mm-hmm. I'm thrilled to be unashamedly celebrating the art of making, because we are a country of
02:03so many brilliant, creative types.
02:20Andrea, hello. Hello Virginia. Nice to meet you here. Nice to meet you here too. Sorry to crash your thinking
02:26time.
02:27Oh, you're very welcome to this beautiful part of the world. But this is where you go and where you
02:33like to walk and do your mental practice.
02:35This is one of my places. I feel like when you're here and you just see this sort of limitless
02:43horizon, your brain just opens up and everything seems possible.
02:48So what do you do here with your thinking time? What are you working through?
02:52When you sit at a piano, you're kind of locked into a space. So you're creatively thinking a lot, but
02:58physically you're in the one spot. So to be able to be out here and to think about the same
03:03music in a different context is really liberating and interesting. And then I often think of things I hadn't thought
03:08about.
03:09You are the most room-bound musician going around, right? Almost every other musician could take their instrument somewhere. Even
03:17a harp could go somewhere.
03:18Yes. Very hard to move a piano. It would not do well right here.
03:33Andrew, this room is very important to you because you won your first Estedford here.
03:38I did. I did. It's amazing to come back to a place that was so significant in childhood.
03:44So what's an Estedford for those who don't know?
03:46And a Stedford is a fancy word for a competition.
03:49Right. Yeah.
03:50And how old were you?
03:51I was 10.
03:51Oh, gorgeous. What were you playing here?
03:54I played a piece by Alfred Hill, an Australian composer called Basseus. And I remember it was like, it's kind
04:01of my jam. It's like very slow, intimate music. And I was surprised that I could win a competition with
04:06that. Nothing flashy and nothing with like a lot of fast notes.
04:09Can you remember any of it? Oh my gosh. This is like 35 years old.
04:23And you're right. It's not that flashy piece.
04:26It's not. Yeah.
04:27You won it.
04:28I won it.
04:30You and I were talking on the beach about how that walking time is so important for you because it's
04:36your mental practice. Then you come to the keys.
04:39Yeah.
04:39And what is it that you're then thinking, okay, now I know partly how to solve this puzzle, this problem.
04:47So the Bach aria from the Goldberg Variations, it's such a mammoth piece. It's always talked about with reverential tones.
04:56It's so complicated. It's like every maths puzzle combined with some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful music. And it's so
05:05epic.
05:08It goes to this. And then responds.
05:16You're constantly zooming in and zooming out.
05:19Ah, yes.
05:19To like try and find, you know, the detail of like that. And that's the detail of all of the
05:25notes that you learn.
05:25How does the whole picture look?
05:26Yeah.
05:28Every pianist has confronted this puzzle, has confronted this challenge.
05:32Yeah.
05:32There's the score. It's been played thousands of times before. So as a pianist who wants to be distinctive, how
05:39do you do that?
05:41When I was growing up, I always thought I had to have like an angle or I had to make
05:45it special in some way. But as I've gotten older, it's just what rings true. You know, what, you know,
05:51everybody wrote something or everybody created something with some kind of intent.
05:55Yeah. Like they wanted to share an emotion or share a story. So it's tapping into whatever the crucial elements
06:01of the art are and then how to bring that alive.
06:03So what is the creative challenge then for you as a pianist in making music distinctive that has been so
06:11well played before?
06:13With the Moonlight Sonata, it starts, you know, it was so revolutionary because it's just this arpeggio.
06:22There's it's just stripped to the basic elements and it is not a fanfare to begin. And so it's like
06:28the like the Philip Glass of classical music.
06:31It just like it just creeps into the room.
06:35It just creeps into the room and it was like completely original at the time. Nobody started a piece like
06:39that. But it's taken then the same thing with the Tchaikovsky concerto.
06:43When you have the first entrance of the pianist, it's just it's just the chord at its most dramatic, but
06:53it's just taking it to its simplest elements.
06:56And I think that, you know, that is a connection that I would never have recognized as a as a
07:02kid.
07:02But just finding connections between Beethoven and Tchaikovsky or Bach and contemporary music.
07:07Yes, they're the two sides of the same coin.
07:09They're two sides of the same coin. They're using like the same genetic material, but in a way to make
07:15an entrance at its most simple level.
07:18Yes.
07:18Opposite ends of the spectrum.
07:24So the pieces that are most loved and persist and stay in our minds, what's the secret sauce to them?
07:31Why is that?
07:33I think that they have something that's immediately moving or appealing or makes you think differently.
07:41Advertising helps and movies and cartoons and Bluey. I love that Bluey has so much classical music.
07:48So much so that my kid one day was like, oh, yeah, I know that from Bluey. What's that piece?
07:53And Jason was a Mozart, you know, Rondo a la Turcat.
07:55Does it look low? Does it look low? Does it look low? Do it?
08:00Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it! Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it?
08:03Do it?
08:03Hey, piano!
08:04And hosts the planet? Of course. The planet?
08:07Everyone knows that now because of Bluey.
08:09Exactly!
08:09Exactly, I love that and that's a way for it to live on, but I think it's got to have
08:14something that captures the imagination immediately, something that either makes you feel better
08:20or makes you think differently, like has some kind of visceral effect.
08:23I think the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue is still so beautiful.
08:28You hear it and you're like, oh, that's gorgeous.
08:30Show me what you mean.
08:31So it's this theme.
08:44She really is, I mean, for want of a better term, she's a freak show on the piano.
08:51It's very rare to be able to do what she does.
09:01A freak show on the piano, what do you mean?
09:05There's nothing she can't do, like, she's so gifted musically and technically.
09:11It's funny, like, she's got these tiny little hands and there's been so many times when I've
09:16shown her things that I was playing and she goes, oh, your hands are big, I can never do
09:21that.
09:21Yet, when she sits down to play, it's like a Mack truck rolling down the highway, I mean,
09:27she's strong, man.
09:33From American standards to symphonies and more modern pieces, Andrea has a broad love
09:40of all piano music, but it began with a very early mastery of the classical repertoire.
09:48So you met a very young Andrea Lamb when she was in grade four.
09:52Yes, I was teaching at MLC school in Sydney and there was this new young violin player,
10:00actually, in my junior string orchestra.
10:03And her name was Andrea Lamb.
10:04So I first knew Andrea actually as a violinist, not as a pianist.
10:09And I taught her all the way through to the end of her high school.
10:14And she was just like this amazing star.
10:17So Andrea was always one to watch.
10:29Andrea, this looks like your favourite seat in the house.
10:34It's like a big toy.
10:35Yeah, the joy in your face is indicating, oh, I can play with this.
10:40I think I was so excited to finally be able to reach it and to start making noises.
10:44How old are you here?
10:45I think I'm two.
10:47I have no memory of life before the piano.
10:49It's always existed as far as I know.
10:52There's no BP, there's only AP.
10:54Yeah, that's the era of AP.
10:59And then my mum played as well.
11:01So just seeing, you know, your parents are so important to you at that age and seeing your
11:06mum and someone you love with this instrument and making these noises.
11:09I think it was a combination of being fascinated by the sounds and also just wanting her attention.
11:13Well, this beautiful man was really important at this stage in your life, too, because your
11:20grandfather introduced piano to your mother, of course.
11:24Yes.
11:24And over classical music, the two of you connected very powerfully.
11:27Yes.
11:28He always loved classical music, but had no experience with it.
11:32So I think when they had their daughter, my mum, they named her Eunice after Eunice Gardner.
11:38So I think he always subliminally-
11:40Eunice Gardner, the pianist.
11:40The pianist, yeah, exactly.
11:42So I think he always subliminally wanted to make it happen.
11:45He manifested it, as they say.
11:47So do you remember his reaction and his feelings about your emerging skill on the piano?
11:54I remember going to visit him once, and he's a very soft-spoken man.
11:59And then beside his, on his bedside table, were all of the recordings I'd ever done.
12:05You know, all of the radio broadcasts that he'd put onto tape and then put next to his bed,
12:09and then the limelight magazine with all of my concert circles.
12:12And there was music always playing in the house, classical music?
12:15There was always, he always had the radio one, and he had this amazing collection of
12:19classical LPs that he always played.
12:21So it was always around.
12:22By the age of 13, you're ready to play with a full-blown orchestra.
12:26Of course you are.
12:27The Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
12:29And this is you in the ABC Quest competition.
12:33And you're talking about making it through to the finals and the piece you're going to play.
12:40I'm so glad that the viewers liked me and voted for me, and I hope they'll support me again.
12:45And I'm going to go out there and do my best, and we'll see what happens.
12:49Aww.
12:49I'm going to play the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2, The First Movement,
12:54which is a vibrant and scintillating work.
12:58And Shostakovich's writing is so brilliant and full of the fun and joy of life.
13:02And each time I play it, I love it more and more.
13:05Aww.
13:08I want to know all the feelings that you're feeling right now.
13:11Oh.
13:11All of them.
13:12It's really weird to see yourself when you're that young.
13:16And we don't have, like, I don't have as many records of myself at that age.
13:20I mean, I haven't seen, I've seen that once before, I think.
13:24But I feel kind of proud.
13:26Oh, good.
13:26Like, it's nice to be at an age where, you know, I'm really proud of that and doing that.
13:32That's so interesting.
13:33Yeah.
13:33I know you don't like the term prodigy.
13:35Yes.
13:36Playing with an orchestra at 13 would seem to be a bit prodigious.
13:40But then you hear about, you know, Mozart and Mendelssohn and, like, these insane geniuses.
13:44And the music that we study is all by such brilliant artists.
13:48So to sort of think of yourself as a prodigy, it felt a little bit weird.
13:53But I've got something to counter that.
13:56I reckon this is a pretty powerful argument against what you're saying.
14:01But you tell me.
14:02You tell me.
14:04I can go all day down here.
14:07Whenever you are.
14:07Goodness gracious.
14:08Will that do?
14:08Yeah.
14:09Want some more?
14:09No, you're good.
14:10You're good.
14:10You're good.
14:11We always talk on this show about the 10,000 hours.
14:14Oh, that's like the beginning.
14:15It's just like, you've done that by the time you're at 10.
14:18Okay.
14:19All right, Andrew.
14:20Because of you, we're changing it to 150,000.
14:23Does that sound better?
14:23That sounds more like it.
14:24Okay.
14:29She wasn't a childhood prodigy in that, you know, she was 10 years old and playing list
14:35sonatas or anything.
14:37But there was a sense of musicality about her that was just beyond so many other people.
14:44So I used that term, prodigy, not in the way that you could, you know, just a supreme
14:51virtuoso, but in fact, a supreme musician.
14:54What's interesting to see that the run of your scholarly life as you're advancing through
14:59your piano career, you were accepted to Yale at the age of 18 and did musical studies there.
15:06What, at that stage, were you chasing?
15:09Did you have a clear idea of what you were after?
15:12I actually didn't.
15:14I knew that I loved it.
15:15And everybody said, you know, keep on going as hard as you can, you know, while you're
15:20young.
15:22I always took academics really seriously.
15:24So I loved that at Yale you could do both, do music and also see how it is contextualized.
15:30That academic part of your brain, keeping that nurtured, that was always really important,
15:34wasn't it?
15:34It is, it is.
15:35I feel like, you know, with all, actually, with all the artists that I admire, it's this
15:41insatiable curiosity and this, like, wanting to figure things out as well and wanting to
15:47understand things and be challenged by things.
15:50So that, I think, is always there.
15:52Well, I want to show you a community of women that I know became very, very important
15:56to you.
15:56And this is the Clermont Trier that you joined.
15:59Yes.
16:00Have a look at this and tell us about these wonderful women.
16:07I love this piece.
16:10I love this piece.
16:12I love this piece.
16:28Well, actually, Emily and Julie are identical twins.
16:36That was a really, really lovely point in my life.
16:39I'm so grateful for the piano trio repertoire is fantastic and spans from Mozart to the current
16:45day.
16:46And I always wanted to be in a piano trio.
16:49I love that.
16:50It's, you know, it's just three of you.
16:51So it's very intimate.
16:53And each of you has your own identity, but you're working together to make a larger sum
16:57of its parts.
17:02Andrea had spent 20 years in her beloved New York City, building a successful and celebrated
17:09career.
17:10But like so many other artists, the pandemic shuttered all her work.
17:15She had to return home with her family.
17:18That was one of the things that it's still painful.
17:21It was such a beautiful relationship.
17:24You know, they're not just friends and they're not just family.
17:26We made music together.
17:27We traveled together.
17:28We became mums at the same time and supported each other through that.
17:32So it was, it's really hard to be so far away from them.
17:37The pandemic losses just mount and stay, don't they?
17:41They really do.
17:42But it, you know, I think that it makes, it made a lot of people really think about what
17:46was important.
17:47I think it made changes that they might not have made otherwise.
17:50I'm very grateful to be in Australia now because of it.
18:02You said a wonderful thing about the piano though, which is that happy or sad.
18:07This is, this is where it all makes sense.
18:09This is, this is where you go.
18:10And in fact, that reminds me of a beautiful project that you did with your former teacher
18:14at MLC, Matthew Heinsohn, which is the sad piano project.
18:19Tell me about that.
18:20Yeah.
18:20This was written during COVID and kind of, you know, everybody was going through a lot
18:25and this was his reaction to it.
18:26But I think there's so much solace and beauty and comfort that people get from sad piano
18:32music.
18:33Like it's not, it's sad in the way that, you know, Moonlight Sonata is sad or Claire de
18:37Lune is sad.
18:38All of these like beautiful pieces that really mean a lot to people.
18:42So I wrote these sad piano pieces and then it's like, well, I'm not a pianist.
18:48I can't play them myself.
18:49Who will I ask to play them?
18:51And I thought, and I thought, and it's like, actually, I do know an incredible pianist
18:57from a long time ago.
18:58And her name is Andrea Lamb.
19:01Can you play me something from?
19:03From sad piano?
19:04Absolutely.
19:05This was the very first one that he wrote and he sent me.
19:08And I immediately loved it.
19:10It's very simple.
19:17First, it's so rare to just have one melodic line in.
19:37Just really simple and pure.
19:40Yeah, lovely.
19:41So, of course, it had to be Brahms that you selected in order to say goodbye to your grandfather.
19:47You played it down the phone to him while he was in Australia and you were in New York.
19:51That's a very difficult thing to do.
19:54It's a piece that I often turn to when I'm not quite sure how to process things.
20:02It's a piece I learned when I was a child.
20:05It's so beautiful.
20:07And also, I find something new in it every time I come to it.
20:11Every time?
20:12Every time.
20:13Every time.
20:17Every time?
20:29Every time?
20:42Every time you go wrong.
20:43Everybody did do a little boy.
20:45.
21:07Andrea's love of music and learning
21:09was fostered here at her old school, MLC in Sydney.
21:14The devoted student has now become the teacher.
21:32I love teaching.
21:33I think it's so interesting
21:34because it's like problem solving.
21:36Everybody comes in with their own experience
21:38and their own strengths and weaknesses,
21:40and you have to try and coax out
21:42the best versions of themselves,
21:45and that is often different for everybody.
21:48I want you to imagine breathing in
21:50and then coming out with this
21:53that really have this intensity when you play.
21:55So can you hop up just for one second?
21:58So even, I think, breathing in and then...
22:04Like, have it be really dramatic,
22:07really commit to that?
22:09And...
22:11So that it has that...
22:13So that you have that tension right from the very first note.
22:16It's amazing to what you teach.
22:18You come alive when you're teaching.
22:21What I picked up, though, is how important the body is.
22:25You're not playing with your hands or your fingers.
22:27You're playing with the body, the whole body.
22:29There's so many different ways of using the body.
22:32Like, in different music, you want to focus on the fingertips themselves.
22:36And then other music, you want to focus on bigger joints
22:38and creating a large sound.
22:39So it's having this awareness of how your body interacts
22:42with the instrument, I think, is crucial.
22:44Just imagining, you know, if you're using gravity,
22:47if you have come from a higher point,
22:49you'll get a more generous sound.
22:52That kind of thing instead of...
22:55So just coming...
22:56Having this sense of using our opposable thumbs
22:59to our best advantage and really using that leverage.
23:02So you can't be physically shy with the piano.
23:05It has to take all of you into it.
23:07It really does.
23:08I mean, I think that fitness is actually really important
23:10as a pianist because it is very physically taxing.
23:14So you want to figure out ways that you can release
23:16as much of yourself into the instrument.
23:18Right down to the soles of your feet.
23:20Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:21So you're feeling your whole body sinking into the keys.
23:23When did you realise that you really loved teaching?
23:26When did that land with you?
23:27I really enjoy different ways of talking about music.
23:31When you play, it's through the music itself.
23:34But then teaching, you have to figure out
23:36what the thought process is
23:37and then communicate that mainly verbally.
23:39So it's a whole different way
23:40of communicating through music.
23:42And this, like, how would you describe this section
23:45from here to there?
23:48I'm thinking scandalous.
23:50Ooh!
23:52Yes!
23:52Let's have this be scandalous.
23:54And then this major section should feel like
23:57you suddenly, like, came into the sun after that.
24:01Don't make it pretty.
24:03We'll see how we can go from there.
24:07Yeah.
24:10When you feel the other person bouncing off your ideas
24:14and then you're feeding off each other,
24:15you can hear it if they understand what you're saying
24:18and you can feel it as well.
24:20You can hear it if they've received the idea or not.
24:22Exactly, exactly.
24:24And then taken it and made it their own.
24:26Good, good, good.
24:27You want them to find the intent behind it.
24:30So that's always, that's always incredible when that happens.
24:41Beautiful.
24:42It was excellent.
24:43How do you feel?
24:44Good.
24:45Good.
24:49I love that it's not about competition or who's better.
24:53Andrea became an unexpected star on the first season of the emotional
24:58and often inspiring ABC TV show The Piano.
25:01The other surprise was the affectionate chemistry she shared
25:05with her co-host, Harry Connick Jr.
25:08When you mentored her, you brought out something and...
25:12She knows so much already.
25:16The thing that's been amazing is that people have responded so much to the piano.
25:21It's meant so much to them and moved them in some way.
25:24And for a lot of people, introduced them to piano
25:26or reconnected them with music.
25:29So that's been the most extraordinary thing.
25:31When we did the piano, it wasn't about how good
25:36or accomplished these hopefuls were.
25:40It really was about how the piano brought everybody together
25:45and how the piano changed or enhanced their lives.
25:51You won the Aria Award just recently for your album Piano Diary.
25:57Congratulations.
25:59That's a mighty achievement and must have felt wonderful.
26:02It was very unexpected.
26:04With Piano Diary, and this is why I really love that album
26:08and I've listened to it many times now, it actually feels like peering into your diary.
26:13It's incredibly revealing and very intimate and very close.
26:18One piece that you play in your very private piano diary is Gershwin.
26:24So the American connection in you is very strong.
26:27Yeah, I spent most of my adult life there, so it's definitely in there.
26:30Well, it's in you musically and it's in you creatively.
26:34That's true.
26:34And that is a really rich creative environment for a pianist.
26:48She's very comfortable in her own musical identity, which allows her to play any style at any time.
27:00So when you listen to her latest album with all of those different influences, it really is like a peek
27:05into who she is because she's so curious.
27:08She has a childlike wonder about her that translates into the way she plays.
27:27When does it feel best for you? How often do you achieve flow state?
27:32Very rarely. Yeah.
27:35It happens once in a while and it's the most amazing thing.
27:39Describe it for us. For those who don't know what flow is,
27:42but every artist I've ever spoken to craves it and achieves it, as you say, once or twice.
27:49It feels like flying, like it feels totally free.
27:52It feels, yeah, like you're just completely in the moment.
27:56Because everything about the piano and the work that you do as a pianist needs an audience to hear it.
28:02An audience leaning forward and attentive needs you in the right state.
28:06And then it's connection, communion. It's bringing everything together.
28:10Yeah, it's a really special privilege to be able to connect with people in that way.
28:16I think in a way that is unencumbered by, it's just left to your own imagination and your own responses
28:23and your own feelings and whatever you're going through.
28:27And it's such a gift to be able to be in that space.
28:41And it's such a gift to be able to be in that space.
28:41I thought, what do you like?
28:42But once a half existed, there was a lot of interaction between people who don't understand their own perception and
28:42their own strength.
28:42To see it, I'm meeting you, Allah.
28:42I think it's just like you should have seen it because you might win.
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