The mother of a blind 13-year-old pianist who left people in tears with her stunning piano playing has recalled the moment her talented daughter first took to the piano while in hospital as a little girl.
Candice, whose daughter Lucy appears on 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 she was diagnosed with cancerous tumours in her eyes, which caused her to lose her sight.
She recalled hospital staff trying to treat young Lucy ‘pin her down’ while administering treatment, while she ‘cried, and she kicked, and she screamed’.
However she added that, as a parent, she put her trust in the doctors and nurses treating her daughter, and recalled the moment a nurse branded her ‘spectacular’ after the young girl played a nursery rhyme on a small keyboard while in hospital.
Lucy sent Twitter into a meltdown this week when a clip of her playing Chopin’s Opus 9 Number 1 was posted on the social media site to promote the new Channel 4 series fronted by Claudia Winkleman.
Lucy (pictured) stunned crowds 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 Lucy lost her sight after being diagnosed with cancerous tumours in her eyes shortly after she was born
Viewers of the clip branded Lucy, who is also severely autistic, a ‘miracle’ as she stunned an audience at Birmingham New Street station and left the show’s judges, popstar Mika and concert pianist Lang Lang, speechless.
Speaking to the Mirror, Candice revealed her daughter struggles to communicate and cannot hold a conversation, and added she is completely blind.
However, she added that when her daughter was ‘very little’, she bought her a keyboard, on which she very quickly learnt to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star perfectly.
After wowing her nurse with the rendition, Lucy got herself a piano teacher, Daniel Bath, who has been coaching her ever since through the Amber Trust, which works with blind musicians.
Lucy’s mother Candice (pictured speaking to Claudia Winkleman on The Piano) revealed her daughter first began 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 he first began teaching his star pupil by allowing her hands to follow his over the keys
Speaking to the newspaper he explained how he first taught Lucy how to play the piano in their earliest lessons.
‘I started using a method of where I would play the piano and she would put her hands on top of my hand so she could feel which fingers would do what. I’ve never met anybody in my career who has the same depth of understanding of music,’ he said.
In Lucy’s episode, which will air next Wednesday at 9pm, viewers will learn more about the talented 13-year-old and will 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, Lucy is led to the piano by a man who helps her find her seat, while Winkleman speaks to a woman who appears to be Lucy’s mother or guardian.
The woman reveals 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 her fingers go in her ears for sensory reasons.’
When Winkleman asks if she needs to tell the crowd not to clap, the woman insists Lucy ‘loves the applause’.
Dressed in a navy blue tulle dress with gold butterflies and a white cardigan, with her hair in bunches, Lucy prepares to play Chopin’s Opus 9 Number 1.
A crowd forms around the piano, with many people recording her on their phones. Meanwhile Mika and Lang Lang, who are watching the clip in a separate room, look visibly moved and watch the performance with open mouths.
At one point, Mika holds his hand up to his mouth and appears to fight back tears.
Lang says: ‘It’s unbelievable that she can play this piece. How – how does she study? I mean, it’s incredible.’
As Lucy finishes the piece and the crowd applauds her, Lang can be heard saying: ‘Oh my God. Oh my God this is – this is impossible.’
He adds: ‘I’m speechless, I don’t know what to say.’
Mika, with tears in his eyes, laughs and replies: ‘There’s nothing to say.’
He added he was ‘flummoxed’ and left ‘speechless’ by Lucy’s moving performance.
After the clip was posted on Twitter, users echoed the judges’ sentiments.
‘Wow! Made me teary eyed that. Amazing stuff,’ one person said.
Another wrote: ‘A magical and beautiful performance by Lucy. An inspiration to everyone watching and a reminder that being neurodiverse is a gift.’
Describing the clip as ‘stunning’, one viewer said: ‘[Lucy] looked so wrapped up in a cocoon of beautiful sound and her playing looked effortless.’
Other people wrote that the clip had given them a ‘big smile’ and was ‘uplifting’ to watch, while a piano teacher shared her experience of coaching a blind student.
She wrote: ‘Blind musicians are incredible in how they learn and memorise music. I have been so blessed by my own, young blind student who has challenged me to look again at my teaching and more besides.
‘Lucy featured here is very special.’
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