>
The mother of a 13-year-old blind pianist who left people in tears with her impressive piano playing has recalled the moment her talented daughter played the piano for the first time while in hospital as a child.
Candice, whose daughter Lucy appears in next week’s episode of Channel 4’s The Piano, said she and her family were left in a ‘cancer bubble’ when the pianist was born, after being diagnosed with cancerous growths in her eyes, which caused him to lose his sight.
He recalled that hospital staff tried to treat young Lucy by ‘pinning her down’ while administering treatment, while she ‘crying, kicking and screaming’.
However, she added that, as a mother, she trusted the doctors and nurses treating her daughter, recalling the moment a nurse called her “spectacular” after the girl played a nursery rhyme on a small keyboard while she was lying down. at the hospital.
Lucy caused a meltdown on Twitter this week when a clip of her playing Chopin’s Opus 9 No. 1 was posted on the social media site to promote the new Channel 4 series headlined by Claudia Winkleman.
Lucy (pictured) wowed the crowd at Birmingham New Street station when she performed a Chopin piece, leaving people in tears as they watched her play. Now her mother has revealed how she Lucy lost her sight after being diagnosed with cancerous tumors in her eyes shortly after birth.
Viewers of the clip called Lucy, who is also severely autistic, a “miracle” when she stunned an audience at Birmingham New Street station and left the show’s judges, pop star Mika and concert performer Speechless. Lang Lang piano.
Talking with him MirrorCandice revealed that her daughter has communication difficulties and is unable to carry on a conversation, adding that she is completely blind.
However, he added that when his daughter was “very little”, he bought her a keyboard, on which she quickly learned to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to perfection.
After surprising her nurse with her playing, Lucy got a piano teacher, Daniel Bath, who has been training her ever since through the Amber Trust, which works with blind musicians.
Lucy’s mother Candice (pictured speaking with Claudia Winkleman on The Piano) revealed that her daughter started playing the piano when she was “very little.”
Lucy’s piano teacher Daniel Bath (pictured guiding Lucy’s hands to the piano at the beginning of the performance) revealed that he first began teaching his star student by allowing her hands to follow his over the keys.
Speaking to the newspaper, he explained how he taught Lucy to play the piano for the first time in her early lessons.
“I started using a method where I would play the piano and she would put her hands on top of mine so she could feel which fingers would do what. I have never met anyone in my career who has the same depth of understanding of music,” she said.
In the episode of Lucy, which will air next Wednesday at 9pm, viewers will learn more about the talented 13-year-old and see her in a lesson with Daniel.
After the teaser clip of her playing Chopin was posted online, people were in awe of her phenomenal talent.
At the beginning of the clip, a man walks Lucy to the piano and helps her find her seat, while Winkleman talks to a woman who appears to be Lucy’s mother or guardian.
The woman reveals that Lucy, who is neurodivergent, covers her ears when people applaud her.
The woman explains: ‘She likes the applause, but she doesn’t like the sound of the applause.
So your fingers go into your ears for sensory reasons.
When Winkleman asks if she needs to tell the crowd not to clap, the woman insists that Lucy “loves applause.”
Dressed in a navy blue tulle dress with gold butterflies and a white cardigan, her hair in bunches, Lucy prepares to play Chopin’s Opus 9 Number 1.
A crowd forms around the piano, with many people recording it with their phones. Meanwhile, Mika and Lang Lang, who are watching the clip in a separate room, look visibly excited and watch the performance with their mouths open.
At one point, Mika puts her hand to her mouth and seems to hold back tears.
Says Lang: ‘It’s amazing that she can play this piece. How – how does she study? I mean, it’s amazing.
As Lucy finishes the piece and the crowd applauds her, Lang can be heard saying, ‘Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, this is… this is impossible.
And he adds: “I’m speechless, I don’t know what to say.”
Mika, teary-eyed, laughs and replies, ‘There’s nothing to say.’
He added that he was “baffled” and “speechless” by Lucy’s moving performance.
After the clip was posted on Twitter, users echoed the sentiments of the judges.
‘Wow! That made me cry. Amazing stuff,’ one person said.
Another wrote: ‘A magical and beautiful performance by Lucy. An inspiration to all who watch and a reminder that being neurodiverse is a gift.’
Describing the clip as ‘stunning’, one viewer said: ‘[Lucy] she seemed so wrapped up in a cocoon of beautiful sound and her playing seemed effortless.’
Others wrote that the clip had given them a ‘big smile’ and was ‘encouraging’ to watch, while a piano teacher shared her experience coaching a blind student.
She wrote: ‘Blind musicians are amazing in the way they learn and memorize music. I have been so blessed by my own young blind student who has challenged me to take another look at my teaching and more.
‘Lucy appearing here is very special.’