Every episode of The Piano gets emotional, but there’s one young woman this week whose story leaves host Amanda Keller almost unable to speak.
The woman’s name is Willow, and in 2020, when she was in her first week of Year 12, she had an accident while crossing the road outside her school that left her in a coma. Her family were told that she might never wake up. When she finally did, it was a long, long road to recovery – and the piano was part of that.
This episode, Willow turns up to Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall and plays a piece of music that her mother used to play to her when she was in the coma. Looking on, musical superstar Guy Sebastian and concert pianist Andrea Lam agree there’s something special about Willow’s performance.
“For me, the most rewarding thing about watching something like this and being part of it is it’s a reinforcement of the power of music,” Guy tells TV WEEK.
Guy admits that sometimes, during the filming of this season, he was left feeling “emotionally so depleted”.
“I’m actually saying to the producers, ‘Um, where are the happy bits?’ They’re like, ‘We promise there’s heaps of happy bits and they’re coming!’”
The “happy bits” this episode include a performance by a 10-year-old called Leila.
She chooses to play a Mozart sonata “because it is my cat’s favourite”.
Later, Amanda welcomes “the Proclaimers plus one” to the piano. The three lookalike brothers from country New South Wales, Jackson, Bayley and Oliver, perform a classic Aussie song that has the crowd in the mall cheering and singing along – even Amanda.
It’s going to be hard for Guy and Andrea to decide which of this episode’s pianists should go on to play in the finale concert.
The Piano airs Sunday, 7.30pm on ABC and ABC iview
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