Piano Man

Television (Full Length) – 2006

Concert pianist Michael Houstoun is a prodigious talent whose career led him back home to New Zealand. This 70-minute documentary tells his life story, from growing up on a Timaru farm to playing prestigious international venues and accomplishing the feat of performing and recording Ludvig van Beethoven's full Sonata cycle. In 1999 he developed a potentially career-ending condition: focal hand dystonia. After five years recuperation he returned to the stage. Piano Man includes footage of Houstoun and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra debuting composer John Psathas' 2006 work View from Olympus.

...the first time I heard it, I was sort of galvanised. I remember my stomach turned over, and that has always been the sign in my life that something's real. It's like when my stomach flips, I take it seriously, and it absolutely flipped, and it said 'that's what you will do'. That was my life somehow explained to me.
– Michael Houstoun on first hearing Beethoven's Apassionata Sonata, at the start of this documentary