Is there a pianist in the house? How audience members – and fellow musicians – have saved the show

A Sydney screening of La La Land with live orchestra was rescued by a brave (and skilled) amateur pianist. What happens when classical performers, or their instruments, suddenly collapse? Plus, Tavener’s mystic pantomime finally gets to the stage

Music’s equivalent of catching a home run at a baseball game happened on Saturday in Sydney, when a 21-year-old university student jumped in to save a performance of the movie La La Land with live orchestra. The band’s keyboardist had fallen ill and couldn’t perform in the second half. Unable to find a replacement at such short notice, the conductor Justin Hurwitz (winner of two Oscars for the film’s music) asked the audience if there was a pianist in the house. Sterling Nasa answered the call, and performed in the second half, improvising a solo, and not getting a tempo change or key signature wrong.

It’s a great story – and incredible that an audience member had the requisite sight-reading and technical skills to carry it off. Could it happen in a classical concert? There have certainly been moments here too when an audience member has saved the day. The best of those stories comes from the summer of 1974, when the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus brought Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana to the Proms, conducted by André Previn, with the baritone Thomas Allen among the soloists. You can actually hear the shocking moment from the live radio broadcast when Allen collapses into the cello section in an episode of the BBC World Service’s Witness History. He had fainted and was carried off the stage. After a brief pause, Previn chose to keep going rather than stop the performance.