Mashup from audience video from concert via YouTube
From a beam of limelight in Sydney comes the story of a young man fulfilling something of a dream as he stepped in to perform on stage after a professional pianist felt ill.
La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, is an homage to Hollywood and the dream of making it on the Silver Screen, and a live performance of the lauded score was in full swing at the Darling Harbor Theatre in the Australian city.
Among the onlookers were Sterling Nasa and his friend Scarlet, admiring the score played by an orchestra beneath the projection of the film on a large screen. By the interval, it had proven a real treat.
But 20 minutes became 30, which quickly became 40, and the audience was restless. Something wasn’t right, and everybody knew it. Among the panic and cold sweat back stage, calls were going out to colleagues and institutes looking for replacements as the concert pianist felt too sick to go on.
But since the show must, the film’s Oscar-winning composer and conductor, Justin Hurwitz, walked out alone to address the audience.
“I figured nobody’s as close as they say they are…” Hurwitz told the country’s ABC Radio “so I just thought, well, we have 2,500 people in here.”
Hurwitz asked if there were a trained pianist in the audience who was a master sight reader, and with the admitted help of Scarlet, Mr. Nasa eventually raised his hand. Hurwitz realized he had to be deadly serious about the proposal, knowing the score as he did, and asked several follow-up questions.
But to the sound of a applause, Nasa walked down and took his place at an electronic piano in the orchestra, understandably nervous. The bagpipes tutor at his school of Scots College had studied piano and organ, but he had no preparation. The score—featuring John Legend compositions—was intense, and he had never played it despite being a longtime admirer of Hurwitz’s work.
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The show restarted with Nasa filling in, until the ultimate test came in the form of a synth solo composed by Legend for a particular part in the film where the notes try to keep pace with Gosling’s frantic on-screen movements.
“I saw it on the score and I thought, oh, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sight-read that in one go,” Nasa told ABC. Hurwitz had dreaded the moment too, and both men—like the characters in the movie—had to just close their eyes and take a leap of faith.
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“I took a little bit of a creative liberty and just decided to improvise, which I think ended up being a good choice,” Nasa admitted. Hurwitz agreed, saying it was an entirely different kind of skill, and an entirely unexpected turn of events that left the 2,500-seat hall enraptured by the hidden talent that had not long earlier sat among them.
Shaking hands backstage after the final bow was full of mutual disbelief, with Hurwitz admitting his head was “spinning.”
“Yes, it was a gamble,” he said, but one which paid off.
WATCH the moment below…
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