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This show is a tribute to all who saved lives like mine

February 25, 2016 12:00
Mona Golabek in The Pianist of Willesden Lane

ByJohn Nathan, John Nathan

3 min read

When concert pianist Lisa Jura taught her young daughter Mona to play the piano, she used to say to always think of story when playing music. She could never have known that the story that Mona now most often thinks of when playing the piano is of her mother Lisa, the brilliant Viennese musician whose ticket to life and safety on the Kindertransport was won by her tailor father in a poker game.

It was the only way he could provide for his family after Jews were banned from doing business. This and other details make up the rich story of survival and hope told by Mona Golabek in her one-woman show at London's St James Theatre.

"She would sit at the piano and tell me stories," says Golabek. "She said each piece of music tells a story, Mona."

It's a story that American pianist Golabek first thought of telling when, some time after her mother Lisa died, Mona was engaged to play the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor. "I woke up thinking this is the piece she always told me about," says Golabek.