By Hugh Robertson

One of the key messages of The Piano, the ABC television series that captured the hearts of the nation earlier this year, was that music touches us in all manner of ways.

From children enraptured by their first experiences to older listeners with a lifetime of memories, music stays with us throughout our lives and continues to inspire – sometimes in surprising ways.

That is as true for one of the hosts of that series as it was for the participants involved and the viewers watching at home. For Andrea Lam, the experience of making a TV show was wildly different to that of preparing for a classical concert, which had her thinking about her work and about music, in a very different way.

‘As a concert pianist you get very obsessive,’ reflects Lam. ‘You're trying to make music and interpret music at a very high level and you're constantly zooming in and zooming out and finding details and layers. But then to be inundated with all of these beautiful stories from all different types of people, all different types of music – it brings us back to the power of music and what it does, how it entertains us, inspires us, comforts us and does so many different things. That was a really beautiful thing to be in touch with again.’

In addition to the TV series Lam has also moved to Melbourne to take up a teaching position at the Conservatorium. Between the TV series and now teaching, these past couple of years has been a period of introspection, leading Lam to really think about what it is she loves about music and how to communicate that to not just her students but the country at large.

‘I'm interested in basically everything. Finding any way to communicate about music and to think about music in a way that's challenging is always interesting to me. Teaching is one of those things that really you are communicating through music, but you're also trying to get out of someone the best versions of themselves and to get them to interpret, and everyone comes to it in a different way. So there's a lot of troubleshooting and it's really fascinating.

‘I love it,’ she says with a laugh. ‘It really crystallises a lot of things and forces you to think about music in different ways.’

The Piano may have introduced Lam to a national audience, but she is certainly no stranger to the Sydney Symphony. Ever since her professional debut with us, aged just 13, Lam has been a regular feature in our concert seasons and she returns in September as part of an all-Richard Strauss concert led by Chief Conductor Simone Young.

This concert is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in the music of one composer with works from throughout his long life: Metamorphosen, one of his final works, Thus Spake Zarathustra and Burleske, a piano concerto in all but name which he wrote when he was just 21.

Burleske is an extraordinary 19-minute whirlwind that at once lays bare the young composer’s admiration for Brahms while also gives hints of the rich orchestration and energy that would define his music in years to come.

It is also a fiendishly difficult piece. Hans von Bülow, an early mentor of Strauss’ for whom the work was written, called it a ‘complicated piece of nonsense’ with a ‘Lisztian’ (derogatory) and ‘unplayable’ piano part.

‘It is an insane piece of music,’ says Lam with a smile. ‘It's so different to anything else. There's so much drama and so many quicksilver changes of mood. All the technical gymnastics are a little bit insane. It has really been fascinating to work on it and really challenging.

‘It has everything: beautiful intimate moments with gorgeous melodies, lots of dancing, lots of waltzing and then lots of fireworks. One of my favourite moments is towards the end, where the piano has the beautiful introspective theme and the orchestra comes in with a waltz that's from far away and a little bit drunken. It's a very evocative moment, and one of my favourites in the whole piece.

I can't think of any other pieces that are like it – so free and beautiful and improvisatory and full of fantasy.

As a result of its unique qualities and immense technical challenges, Burleske is performed much less frequently than most of Strauss’ other orchestral works – it has only been heard in Sydney twice since 1974 – and indeed Lam had never performed it before.

‘One of the things I love about piano – and also one of things that is very frustrating too – is that the repertoire is so limitless. You are constantly learning new repertoire, constantly pushing yourself. It is really challenging and really exciting, it is not usually very comfortable, there's a lot of analyzing, figuring things out – it’s a whole process.

‘But that's the life of an artist. You can never be complacent. If you are it's probably time to do something else.’

Sustaining her through the challenges of learning this piece is the shiny prize at the end: performing it with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Simone Young.

‘I’m completely in awe of Simone Young, as is the rest of the world,’ says Lam with a smile. ‘She's such a phenomenal musician and conductor. To be able to do this piece with Simone and the SSO, those are the best presents – to be able to play it with musicians that you adore and who are so inspiring. That's the best reason to dive into something, to figure it out and to find its secret.’