Antrim student makes piano history with one hand: ‘The overwhelming feeling was just relief’

Freya Terris is the first pianist to pass their Grade 8 piano exam playing solely with their left handFreya Terris passed her Grade 8 piano exams with the use of only her left hand. Video: Chris Maddaloni Like countless other young musicians, Freya Terris discovered her love of music at the piano stool. Yet her journey has been anything but ordinary.“It all started with my sister. My sister is a phenomenal pianist and I grew up hearing her practising and annoying her while she practised,” says 17-year-old Terris, who attends Friends’ School in Lisburn, Co Antrim. When Terris was four, her sister Chloe reached her “breaking point” and their parents decided to allow Terris begin piano lessons. “I loved listening to my sister play so I thought I might as well learn how to do it for myself and give her some peace. I’ve been playing ever since, I just love music,” she says.Terris worked her way up the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) grades until she reached Grade 7 for piano. READ MOREIn 2024 a long-term injury and surgery left Terris unable to play with her right hand and what once brought her so much joy now seemed like a daunting task. “I unfortunately came to the conclusion that the time wouldn’t come to pass where I would pass my Grade 8 exam,” Terris says. “It was my teacher’s idea to see how open the board would be for me to play a repertoire specifically for one hand. I believe I was the first to get Grade 8 with one hand. The board agreed, surprisingly.”Terris still had to push herself to pass the exam and had to effectively relearn the instrument that first made her fall in love with music with only her left hand. While learning a repertoire strictly limited to one hand, Terris says the whole situation “felt like a small drop in a big ocean”. Freya Terris playing at her home in Lisburn. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times “It was one of the many things that I was coming to the realisation that I wouldn’t be able to do any more. It almost felt like it was another restriction that I didn’t need. I thought if I can do something about this then I will.”Terris succeeded and became the first student in ABRSM history to pass their Grade 8 piano exam with a repertoire solely for the left hand.The Board has since added a one-handed repertoire to its 2027–28 syllabus. Initially launched in 2023 for Grades 1-5, the collection expanded to include “Piano Music for One Hand” in the advanced Grades 6-8 since Terris’s achievement. “I was very relieved when I got the results,” Terris says with a laugh. “But the overwhelming feeling I felt was just relief. You know, I just wanted to do everyone proud. My parents and my piano teacher, and my music teachers in school who have been so supportive and have put so much time and energy into making me think that doing this is possible. It’s almost for their sake I’m glad I could do this and do this well in a way that I’m proud of.” Terris says it’s “way more mentally challenging” playing with one hand and that everything is “more complicated”. “It takes a bit more time to sort out the score before you even get to playing. Technically, it is harder. Physically I feel like I’m about to fall off the pedestal when I’m performing because it is so quick. There is a lot of movement involved in it.” [ Cover bands: The serious business of pretending to be someone elseOpens in new window ]Before passing her Grade 8, Terris says she was coming to a stage where she was no longer enjoying her long-time hobby of playing the piano. “It was difficult practising and looking down and seeing my ‘useless’ right hand sitting in my lap. But in the end, I know it is a positive thing – sometimes I look down and I’m like, ‘look at what I can still do’.” “Freya is an extremely conscientious student,” says Rory Dowse, a fellow Lisburn native and Freya’s piano teacher. “She had to undergo the operation and had to relearn the instrument in about the space of a year and then became the first person to pass it with one hand in the ABRSM’s 137-year history,” says Dowse. “It’s really incredible.”Dowse learned the piano under Peter Tuite, the Head of Keyboard at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, who in turn was taught by Leon Fleisher. Leon Fleisher playing at the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 1963 before losing the use of his right hand The renowned American pianist Fleisher lost the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia at the height of his career.“Fleisher built much of his career on the left-hand repertoire,” says Dowse. “There’s a direct line from Fleisher’s legacy to what Freya has just done.” Like Terris, Fleisher had to create an alternative musical path and mastered the left-handed repertoire before becoming a conductor at the Baltimore and Annapolis orchestras.For Dowse, whose own journey has connected Terris to the story of the renowned Fleisher, it has been “something of an Odyssey”. “I love storytelling at the piano, and I’m proud to share this story of Freya,” says Dowse. “This love [of playing the piano] – as well as the love of challenge, courage and prophesying – has kept me moving forward.”“It’s reminded me that storytelling creates connection, beyond the TV cameras and Facebook posts, and that this is what we are and what we need. This is why the piano continues to find a way.”Back in Lisburn, Terris plans on studying music at university after completing secondary school.“In a perfect world I’d love to go to somewhere like Cambridge, Edinburgh or Trinity College Dublin. Somewhere academic because, you know, I am a history girl. But I do just love music. Who knows, we will see.”Following in Fleisher’s footsteps, Terris has already proven that there is nothing she cannot do when she puts her mind to it. IN THIS SECTION