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Short filmTranscript
00:06Andrea hello hello Virginia oh I can't wait to talk to you about your life at the piano because
00:12it really has been your whole life from a very young age hasn't it I don't remember life without
00:17the piano it's always been there in every moment yes but you don't like the term prodigy I am
00:24someone who loves music and showed an early talent for it but I wouldn't say prodigy now I will be
00:30the
00:30judge of that you're not just a player you're a teacher you're a collaborator you're a recording
00:36artist and all of those connections are really important to you aren't they I just find that
00:41every aspect of music inspires the other so I feel so lucky to have all these different tendrils of
00:46music going on well I know you like to work out the music you're going to play in your time
00:51alone do
00:52you mind if I come and crash your alone time oh please I love sharing my good okay I'll see
01:00you
01:00then I can't wait I'm Virginia Trioli and I've spent my life paying attention to creative Australians
01:10and wondering what is going on in that wild mind of theirs in this series I'll showcase artists and
01:18performers at the peak of their powers and tell the story of their triumphs their stumbles and why
01:24they make the glorious work we love so much Andrea Lam is one of Australia's finest classical pianists she
01:34made her debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the age of 13 before embarking on a distinguished
01:40international career now she finds a new skill as a mentor she's fantastic as a teacher I kind of want
01:49you to throw that all out the window a little bit and as a star of the hit ABC TV
01:53show the piano there's
01:55something special going on it's incredible I'm thrilled to be unashamedly celebrating the art of
02:01making because we are a country of so 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 oh you're very welcome to this beautiful part of the world but this is uh where you go and
02:34where
02:34your mental practice this is one of my places I feel like when you're here and you just see this
02:42sort of limitless horizon your brain just opens up and it is everything seems possible so what do you
02:49do here with your thinking time what are you working through when you sit at a piano you kind of
02:54locked
02:54into a space so you're you're creatively thinking a lot but physically you're in the one spot so to be
03:00able to be out here and to think about the same music in a different context is really liberating
03:05and interesting and then I often think of things I hadn't thought about you are the most room-bound
03:11musician going around right that's almost every other musician could could take their instrument
03:16somewhere even a harp yes could go somewhere yes very hard to move a piano it would not do well
03:22right here
03:33and you this room is very important to you because you won your first a Stedford here I did I
03:40did it's
03:41amazing to come back to a place that was so significant in childhood so what's an assistant for those who
03:46don't know and a Stedford is a fancy word for a competition right yeah and how old were you I
03:51was 10
03:51oh yeah what were you playing here um I played a piece by Alfred Hill an Australian composer called
03:58basus and I remember it was like it's kind of my jam it's like very slow intimate music and I
04:05was
04:05surprised that I could win a competition with that nothing flashy and nothing with like a lot of fast
04:09notes can you remember any of it oh my gosh this is like 35 years old and you're and you're
04:24right
04:25it's not that flashy piece it's not yeah you want it I want it you and I were talking on
04:32the beach about
04:32how that walking time is so important for you because it's your mental practice then you come to
04:38the keys yeah and what is it that you're then thinking okay and now I know partly how to solve
04:44this pro this puzzle this problem so say the Bach aria from the Goldberg variations it's such a mammoth
04:51piece it's always talked about with reverential tones it's so complicated it's it's like every maths
05:00puzzle combined with some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful music and it's so epic
05:08it goes to this and then responds you're constantly zooming in and zooming out to like try and find you
05:20know the detail of like that and that's the detail of all of all of the notes how does the
05:25whole picture
05:26look yeah every pianist has confronted this puzzle has confronted this challenge yeah it's the score
05:33it's been played thousands of times before so as a pianist who wants to be distinctive how do you do
05:39that when I was growing up I always thought I had to have like an angle or I had to
05:44make it special in
05:45some way but as I've gotten older it's just what rings true you know what you know everybody wrote
05:52something or everybody created something with some kind of intent like they wanted to share an emotion
05:57or share a story so it's tapping into whatever the crucial elements of the art are and then how to
06:03bring that alive so what is the creative challenge then for you as a pianist in making music distinctive
06:10that has been so well played before with the moonlight sonata it starts you know it was so revolutionary
06:18because it's just this arpeggio there's it's just stripped to the basic elements and it is not a
06:26fanfare to begin and so it's like the like the Philip Glass of classical music it just like it just
06:33it
06:33just creeps into the room it just creeps into the room and it was like completely original at the time
06:37nobody started a piece like that but it's taken then the same thing with the Tchaikovsky concerto when you
06:43have the first entrance of the pianist it's just it's just the core at its most dramatic but it's
06:53just taking it to its simplest elements and I think that you know that is a connection that I would
06:59never
07:00have recognized as a as a kid but just finding connections between Beethoven and Tchaikovsky or Bach
07:06and and contemporary music yes they're the two sides of the same coin two sides of the same coin they're
07:11using like the same genetic material uh-huh but in and in a way to make an entrance at its
07:16most simple
07:17level yes opposite ends of the spectrum
07:24so the pieces that are most loved and persist and stay in our minds what's the the secret source to
07:31them why is that I think that they have something that's immediately moving or appealing or or makes
07:39you think differently um advertising helps and movies and cartoons and bluey I love that bluey has
07:46so much classical music so much so that my kid one day was like oh yeah I know that's from
07:52bluey what's
07:52that piece and it was a Mozart you know Rondo a la turkrat
08:03hey piano and host the planet of course the planet everyone knows that now because of bluey
08:09exactly like I love that and that's a way for it to live on um but I think it's it's
08:14got to have
08:14something that captures the imagination immediately something that you either makes you feel better or
08:20makes you think differently like has some kind of visceral effect I think the you know the Gershon
08:25Rhapsody in blue it's still so beautiful you hear it and you're like oh that's gorgeous show me what
08:31she really is I mean for want of a better term she's a freak show on the piano so it's
08:51very rare to be able to do what she does
09:00like that a freak show on the piano what do you mean there's nothing she can't do like she's she's
09:07so
09:07gifted musically and technically it's funny like she's got these tiny little hands and there's been
09:14so many times when I've shown her things that I was playing and she goes oh your hands are big
09:20I can never
09:20do that yet 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 of all piano music
09:42but 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
09:57new young violin player actually in my in my junior string orchestra and her name was Andrea Lamb
10:04so I first knew Andrea actually as a violinist not as a pianist and I taught her all the way
10:11through to the end of
10:12her uh in her high school and she was just like this amazing star so Andrea was always one to
10:19watch
10:28well Andrea this looks like your favorite seat in the house it's like a big toy yeah that's the
10:36the joy in your face is indicating oh I can play with this I think I was so excited to
10:42finally be
10:42able to reach it and to start making noises how old are you here I think I'm two I have
10:48no memory
10:48of life before the piano it's always existed as far as I know there's no bp there's only ap yeah
10:54that's
10:56the era of ap and then my mum played as well so just seeing you know your your parents are
11:04so important
11:04to you at that age and seeing your mum and someone you love with this instrument and making these
11:08noises I think it was a combination of being fascinated by the sounds and also just wanting
11:13her attention well um this beautiful man it was really important at this stage in your life too
11:19because your grandfather uh introduced piano to your mother of course yes and over classical music
11:25the two of you connected very powerfully yes he always loved classical music but had no experience with
11:32it so I think when they had their daughter my mum they named her Eunice after Eunice Gardner so I
11:38think
11:39he always the pianist yeah exactly so I think he always subliminally wanted to make it happen he
11:45manifested it as they say so do you remember his reaction and his feelings about your emerging skill
11:53on the piano I remember going to visit him once and he's a very soft-spoken man and then beside
12:00his on
12:01his bedside table were all of the recordings I'd ever done you know all the radio broadcasts that
12:06he'd put onto tape and then put next to his bed and then the limelight magazine with all of my
12:11concert
12:11circles and there was music always playing in the house classical music there was always he always
12:16had the radio one and he had this amazing collection of classical lps that he always played so it was
12:21always around by the age of 13 you're ready to play with a full-blown orchestra of course the sydney
12:28symphony orchestra and this is you in the abc quest competition and you're talking about uh making it
12:36through to the finals and the piece you're going to play i'm so glad that the viewers liked me and
12:42voted for me and i hope they'll support me again and i'm going to go out there and do my
12:47best and we'll
12:48see what happens oh i'm going to play the shostakovich piano concerto number two the first movement
12:54which is a vibrant and scintillating work and shostakovich's writing is so brilliant and full
13:01of the fun and joy of life and each time i play it i love it more and more i
13:05want to know all the
13:09feelings that you're feeling right now oh all of them it's really weird to see yourself when you're
13:16that young and we don't have like i don't have as many records of myself at that age i mean
13:20i haven't
13:20seen i've seen that once before i think but i feel kind of proud like it's nice to be at
13:27an age where
13:28you know you i'm really proud of that and and doing that that's so interesting yeah i know you don't
13:34like
13:34the term prodigy yes playing 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 and
13:45the music that we study is all by such brilliant artists so to sort of think of yourself as a
13:51prodigy is it felt a little bit weird but i've got something to counter that i reckon this is a
13:56pretty
13:56powerful argument against what you're saying but you you told me this is you tell me i can i can
14:05go all
14:06day down here whenever you are goodness gracious yeah no you're good you're good you're good we always
14:12talk on this show about the 10 000 hours oh that's like the beginning yeah it's just like you've
14:17done that by the time you're at 10. okay all right andrew because because of you we're changing it to
14:21150 000. does that sound better that sounds more like okay okay
14:29she wasn't a childhood prodigy in that you know she was 10 years old and playing list sonatas or anything
14:37but there was a sense of musicality about her that was just beyond so many other people
14:44so i use that i use that term prodigy not in not in the way that you could you know
14:50just a supreme
14:51virtuoso but in fact a supreme musician what's interesting to see that the run of your of your
14:57scholarly life as you're advancing through your piano career you're accepted to yale at the age of 18 and did
15:04musical studies there what at that stage were you chasing did you have a clear idea of what you were
15:10after i actually didn't i knew that i loved it and everybody said you know keep on going as hard
15:18as you
15:18can you know you while you're young i always took academics really seriously so i loved that at yale you
15:26could do both to do music and and also see how it is contextualized that academic part of your brain
15:32keeping that nurtured that was always really important wasn't it it is it is i feel like you
15:36know with all actually with all the artists that i admire it's this insatiable curiosity and this like
15:43wanting to figure things out as well and wanting to understand things and be challenged by things so
15:50that that i think is always there well i want to show you a community of women that i know
15:54became
15:54very very important to you and this is the claire montreal that you joined yes have a look at this
16:01and
16:01tell us about uh these wonderful women i love this piece
16:20now that to me as an absolute amateur uh sounds like and looks like um one brain three bodies
16:28i actually um emily and julie uh identical twins so uh that was a really really lovely point in my
16:39life i'm so grateful for the piano trio repertoire is is fantastic and spans from mozart to the current
16:45day and uh i always wanted to be in a piano trio i love that it's you know it's just
16:51three of you so
16:51it's very intimate and each of you has your own identity but you're working together to make a
16:56larger sum of its parts andrea had spent 20 years in her beloved new york city building a successful
17:07and celebrated career but like so many other artists the pandemic shuttered all her work
17:16she had to return home with her family that was one of the things that it's still painful it was
17:22such a
17:22beautiful relationship you know it's they're not just friends and they're not just family we made
17:26music together we traveled together became mums at the same time and and supported each other through
17:31that so it was it's really hard to be so far away from them the pandemic losses just mount and
17:39stay
17:40don't they they really do but it you know i think that it makes it made a lot of people
17:45really think
17:46about what was important i think and make changes that they might not have made otherwise i'm very
17:51grateful to be in australia now because of it you said a wonderful thing about the piano though which is
18:05that happy or sad this is this is where it all makes sense this is this is where you go
18:10and in fact
18:11that reminds me of a beautiful project that you did with your former teacher at mlc
18:15matthew heinzen which is the sad piano project tell me about that yeah this was written during covert
18:22and kind of you know everybody was going through a lot and this was his reaction to it i think
18:27there's
18:28so much solace and beauty and comfort that people get from sad piano music like it's not it's sad in
18:34the way that you know moonlight sonata is sad or claire de lune is sad all of these like beautiful
18:39pieces
18:39that really mean a lot to people so i wrote these sad piano pieces and then it's like well i
18:46i'm not
18:47a pianist i can't play them myself who will i ask to play them and i thought and i thought
18:53and it's like
18:54actually i do know an incredible pianist from a long time ago and her name is andrea lamb
19:01can you play me something from from sad piano absolutely this was the very first one that he
19:07wrote and he sent me and i immediately loved it it's very simple it's
19:17first it's so rare to just have one melodic line in
19:38just really simple and pure yeah lovely so of course it had to be brahms that you selected in
19:45order to say goodbye to your grandfather you played it down the phone to him while he was in australia
19:50and you were in new york that's a very difficult thing to do that's a piece that i often turn
19:57to
19:57um when i'm not quite sure how to process things it's it's some a piece i learned when i was
20:04a child
20:04it's so beautiful and also i find something new in it every time i come to it every time every
20:12time
20:13i'm
20:15i'm
20:25i'm
20:41i'm
20:43i'm
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 because everybody,
21:35it's like problem solving.
21:36Everybody comes in with their own experience
21:38and their own things, their strengths and weaknesses
21:40and you have to try and coax out, you know,
21:43the best versions of themselves
21:45and that is often, it's 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?
21:57So even, I think, breathing in and then...
22:04Like, have it be really dramatic, really commit to that.
22:11So that it has that...
22:13So that you have that tension right from the very first note.
22:16It's amazing to watch 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,
22:33you 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
22:41of how your body interacts with the instrument,
22:43I 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, having 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 of 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, yes.
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.
24:06Yeah.
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 incredible when that happens.
24:41Beautiful.
24:42It was excellent.
24:43How do you feel?
24:44Um, good.
24:45Good.
24:47Good.
24:49I love that it's not about competition or who's better.
24:53Andrea became an unexpected star
24:56on the first season of the emotional
24:58and often inspiring ABC TV show, The Piano.
25:02The other surprise was the affectionate chemistry
25:05she shared with her co-host, Harry Connick, Jr.
25:08When you mentored her, you brought out something.
25:12And she got so much already.
25:15The thing that's been amazing is that
25:18people have responded so much to The Piano.
25:21It's meant so much to them and moved them in some way.
25:23And for a lot of people, introduced them to Piano
25:26or reconnected them with music.
25:28So that's been the most extraordinary thing.
25:31When we did The Piano,
25:34it wasn't about how good or accomplished
25:37these 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
25:54for 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,
26:09it 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
26:23is Gershwin.
26:24So the American connection in you is very strong.
26:27Yeah, I spent most of my adult life there,
26:29so it's definitely in there.
26:31Well, 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.
26:47She's very comfortable in her own musical identity
26:52which allows her to play any style at any time.
27:00So when you listen to her latest album
27:02with all of those different influences,
27:04it really is like a peek into who she is
27:06because she's so curious.
27:08She has a childlike wonder about her
27:11that translates into the way she plays.
27:27When does it feel best for you?
27:29How often do you achieve flow state?
27:32Oh, very rarely.
27:34Yeah.
27:35It happens once in a while
27:36and it's the most amazing thing.
27:39And then...
27:40Describe it for us.
27:41For those who don't know what flow is,
27:42but every artist I've ever spoken to
27:44craves it and achieves it, as you say,
27:47once or twice.
27:49It feels like flying.
27:50Like, it feels totally free.
27:52It feels...
27:54Yeah, like you're just completely in the moment.
27:56Because everything about the piano
27:58and the work that you do as a pianist
28:00needs an audience to hear it,
28:02an audience leaning forward and attentive
28:04needs you in the right state,
28:06and then it's connection, communion,
28:08it's bringing everything together.
28:10Yeah, it's a really special privilege
28:13to be able to connect with people in that way.
28:16I think in a way that is unencumbered by...
28:20It's just left to your own imagination
28:22and your own responses
28:23and your own feelings
28:25and whatever you're going through.
28:27And it's such a gift
28:28to be able to be in that space.
28:29And it's just like a gift
28:38And if you can actually do something
28:38but your own voice
28:40And it's reducingます
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