Lucy
Are you familiar with the story of Lucy, a thirteen year-old from Yorkshire who just won Channel 4’s The Piano? It is always fascinating to watch super-talented young musicians, but Lucy’s case is exceptional: she is developmentally delayed, so cannot hold a conversation, and has been blind from early childhood. What is amazing is not primarily that she is blind yet plays so well. There are other blind pianists. Zhu Xiao-Mei purposely keeps her eyes shut while performing. What is amazing is that music found a way into the mind and heart of a child largely locked up in herself, and released her. It taught her stillness. It opened her to encounters. A dormant, perhaps unexpected soul-depth within her awaited the discovery of beauty. A vulnerable youngster unable to communicate verbally acquired fluency of expression through Chopin and Debussy. To hear her teacher, Daniel Bath, speak of how he went about unlocking the universe of music for her is wonderful.
