Exclusive: Top pianist is hit by a car

Last Saturday morning, the British pianist Paul Lewis had finished his shopping at Tesco’s superstore in Amersham and was heading off to rehearse Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Sunday’s South Bank concert.

He was crossing the Tesco car park in a straight line towards his car when a vehicle sped up from behind and hit him in the back and leg.

‘One inch either way and I’d have been under the car,’ Paul tells slippedisc.com.

Rushed to hospital, he received a full CT scan which revealed a hairline fracture in a middle-lower vertebrae, t-11. He’s feeling better every day but expects it will take six weeks to make a full recovery.

The Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg jumped in for Sunday’s concert.

Paul has had to cancel the closing concert of his Schubert sonata series in Perth, Scotland, but he’s hoping to be fit enough to play Palermo at the end of next week.

Like all musicians, he knows that life and work can hang by a thread. Beyond that, much depends on your resilience.

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