For 14-year-old Melburnian Stefania Robu, walking down the street has become a “bizarre experience”.
After appearing on last year’s premiere season of ABC’s The Piano, people suddenly started recognising her.
“It wasn’t even just in Melbourne; it was also in Sydney, Brisbane, almost everywhere I went in Australia!” she says with something like shock.
“People would ask: ‘Are you that girl from the show? We have all been watching you, my kids have been watching you and they play the piano.””
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While the recognition was exciting for Stefania, she also found it a bit daunting.
“Even just from that tiny little space of an hour on the screen, kids already look up to me,” she says. “It makes me feel that I need to keep up that high standard that I set.”
Stefania wowed the crowds that gathered at Preston Markets in an early episode of the season and was selected to perform in the final concert at Sydney’s City Recital Hall. She performed a piece by her favourite composer, Clara Wieck Schumann.
“I enjoyed everything about that wonderful concert, it was really exciting and really inspiring,” she says.
“[The Piano] and the concert was the biggest experience of my life … up until Carnegie Hall.”
Loading…Knocking it out of the concert hall
Stefania needn’t have been worried about maintaining her high standard after the show ended.
Last year, at the age of 13, she entered the Brooklyn Music Teachers’ Guild Intercontinental Music Competition.
She won in her age group for both piano concerto and solo, and was selected to perform in world-renowned New York concert venue Carnegie Hall.
“We didn’t really have much time to sightsee because the whole week was filled with conductor meetings, rehearsals, sound checks and performances.” (Supplied: Ciprian Robu)
“I was ecstatic,” she gushes. “It was a dream come true — it was just a lot sooner than I expected.”
After a whirlwind week of rehearsals and sound checks and meetings with conductors, she was finally set to take the stage.
“There are the pre-stage nerves that always come about no matter where you go,” Stefania says.
“But it was also infused with lots of excitement; I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m actually here.'”
Of course, she knocked it out of the park (or concert hall).
“After the concerto the conductor was absolutely beaming,” she says. “He was so happy about how it turned out and the entire orchestra was as well.”
Since returning home, Stefania has kept the momentum going.
“Playing at Carnegie Hall was a really special experience; the experience of a lifetime, I’d call it,” says Stefania. (Supplied: Ciprian Robu)
She will be playing in a number of different concerts, primarily platforming the work of her beloved Clara Schumann, and will also be professionally recording her music. And all of this on top of the normal school and social load of a teenager.
While sometimes tricky to balance it all, Stefania just loves the way playing piano for others makes her feel.
“The piano is more than just an instrument,” she says.
“For me, it’s a tool that I can use as kind of like a conveyor belt to express my emotions and give them to other people.”A big move
For Malik Traki Johnston, the strangest moment of being on The Piano came when he spotted someone at his school watching the show.
“I thought, ‘Oh, so this is like a real thing,'” says the 17-year-old from Bangalow, in New South Wales’ Northern Rivers region.
“It did feel very strange to see myself on the ABC, because obviously I watched ABC so much as a kid. It was quite a fulfilling moment.”
“When I saw the opportunity [to be on The Piano], I just was ready to share more music,” says Malik. (Supplied: Ambyr Johnston)
Malik is another young musician who has been resolutely pursuing his piano passions since filming ended.
Not long after the show aired, Malik was accepted into the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
To move down south was a big, and expensive, step. But with the support of his tight-knit community, he put on a fundraiser concert to help raise money for residential college. It sold out within a week.
“Everyone really loved it; lots of people gave me very nice feedback and there were people crying,” says Malik.
“It’s a long way away, Melbourne from Byron Bay,” says Malik of his move down south. (Supplied: Ambyr Johnston)
“It was very beautiful to see the community just come together like that, and it allowed me to come and study in Melbourne, which is amazing.”
Moving down in February and taking his place as the youngest person at the school, Malik says it still feels a bit like an extended holiday, but he’s enjoying that “it’s not as humid”.
After studying, Malik has ambitions to become a concert pianist in Europe; he says he just loves to play, and to share his music with others.
“There’s something special about knowing that you’re making that music rather than just listening to it online,” he says.
“And being able to view the music written by other composers through your own lens is something so fascinating to me — that’s truly the most fulfilling part of playing.”
It’s about how you play
Vincenzo Pandolfi doesn’t share Malik’s ambition to tour the world with his music; he’s quite happy playing at home and around his community in Sydney.
“I’m just an amateur pianist, but I love it,” he says.
Everywhere Vincenzo plays, he dedicates his music to his wife, Elaine, who died just a few months before filming, 10 years after having a stroke.
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“I still miss my wife every day and my wedding ring is still on my finger,” he says.
“Every week, without fail, she always got Women’s Day. Then I ended up in Women’s Day and of course she wasn’t able to see it, so that’s sad.”
He wrote a tribute song to her for Christmas, his first without her.
“I don’t think anyone likes it, probably due to my old man singing, but the sentiment counts.”
While Vincenzo says he’ll always be grieving for his wife, being on The Piano has helped.
“It gave me an incentive to keep playing, and to keep learning new things and try and improve all the time.”
He’s also still in close contact with the others who appeared on season one of The Piano: he gushes like a proud dad about Stefania playing at Carnegie Hall; he delightedly informs me that Gemma had a baby; and says he wrote a song for the left hand for DJ, who lost the use of his right hand after having a stroke in his early twenties.
Vincenzo says performing in the final concert of The Piano is a memory he will cherish for the rest of his life. (Supplied: Vincenzo Pandolfini)
The pair are aiming to put on a concert for the Stroke Recovery Association.
“I just thought I might as well use this little bit of notoriety and put it to some good use,” Vincenzo says.
But for him, it’s really all about the music. He practices every day at home, busks every Wednesday, and regularly plays at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, the cancer hospital.
“I’m not a virtuoso, I don’t play very difficult things, but I realise that it’s not so much what you play, but how you play it,” he says.
“The other day I was playing [at the hospital] and this guy said, ‘I had a horrible morning, but you made it so much better.’ It’s nice to hear things like that.”
Most of all, he is delighted to hear from parents who say the show helped encourage their children to play.
“Somehow, in a small way, you make a difference to someone’s life,” says Vincenzo.
“And that is so rewarding.”