A Sydney university student replaced a sick musician on stage during the opening night of La La Land in Concert in Sydney on Saturday night.
During the interval, Oscar-winning composer and conductor Justin Hurwitz informed the audience at the ICC’s Darling Harbour theatre that the production’s keyboard player was ill and unable to continue, and asked whether anyone in the crowd could sight-read.
A 21-year-old student named Sterling Nasa volunteered, and was invited up on the stage for the second half of the performance, local media reported.
La La Land in Concert is a touring production in which the film, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, is screened while a live orchestra performs the score in sync with the movie.
After a brief introduction, Mr Nasa learned he would be playing the celesta, an instrument similar to an upright piano that he had never performed on before.
Within minutes, he was seated with the orchestra and following the score in real time.
Later, Mr Hurwitz told The Guardian Australia that there was a sense of panic when the orchestra’s musician fell sick. “Our first thought was, is there a string player who also knows keyboard? The answer was no.”
When the sick musician tried to call local musicians, most of them said they would take 15-20 minutes to reach the venue.
Mr Hurwitz added: “I figured nobody’s as close as they say they are … so I just thought, well, we have 2,500 people in here …
“Yes, it was a gamble.
“That’s why I asked a few times. I wanted to make sure that somebody wasn’t just overly confident. I asked a couple of follow-up questions like, ‘Are you sure? Can you really sight-read? Can you play key signatures you’ve never played before?’”
Despite initial nerves, Mr Nasa successfully navigated the demanding performance, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
He was encouraged by his friend to volunteer to go up on the stage. “She just said, ‘just do it, it’ll be good dad lore’,” he told the outlet. “I thought, ‘she’s right’, so put my hand up.”
For the initial 10 minutes of the performance, he said he was quite nervous. But he said that he thought to himself, “just stay focused, try your best, you’re not completely out of your depth”.
Then the audience also encouraged him with applause.
“The only one that caught me a little bit off guard was the synth solo in the [John Legend song] Start a Fire,” Mr Nasa said.
“It’s a very technical solo that Ryan Gosling plays … I saw it on the page and I thought, ‘I’m not going to be able to sight-read this’, so I took the liberty and just completely improvised the solo.”
Mr Hurwitz later told him he was relieved the solo had been played. “He said, ‘I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to do it or, worst case, that you’d just stop playing and there wouldn’t be a synth solo’.”
Mr Nasa told the Guardian: “I took a little bit of a creative liberty and just decided to improvise, which I think ended up being a good choice.”
Besides his studies, Mr Nasa also teaches bagpipes at Scots College and is proficient on the piano and organ. His performance in unusual circumstances on Saturday has thrust him into overnight fame, with appearances booked across Australia’s morning shows by the time Monday came around.
He revealed to ABC Radio that he almost kept quiet when the call for a piano player came. “I was a little bit tentative,” he said. “I do owe a lot of the experience to my friend, Scarlett, who sort of … put my hand up for me. But I did end up finding the confidence and it was a very good decision to go down and volunteer myself.”
