Pianist is an inspiration

After a stroke left pianist Dong-Jun (DJ) Ha paralysed on his right side, he thought he would never play again. Fast forward 10 years, and he has just performed his first concert in Cherrybrook.

After a stroke left pianist Dong-Jun (DJ) Ha paralysed on his right side, he thought he would never play again.

But a casual conversation with a friend who works at Inala, a Cherrybrook organisation supporting people living with disability, led to his first concert in a decade.

The concert pianist studied at the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney and then the Moscow Conservatory, where he met his wife, before the pair moved to Australia.

Then in 2007 Ha had a stroke, and his music career was halted.

“I was making coffee and suddenly my right half just collapsed,” he said. “My wife ... quickly called the ambulance and by the time they were there I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak.”

Ha was hospitalised for three weeks and then had to learn how to walk and talk again.

DJ Ha at his piano. Picture: Troy Snook

Left with the inability to use his right arm, the father-of-two faced the rest of his days without the hobby he had turned into a career.

He gave up playing piano and planned to teach music instead.

“I had to give up performance, but teaching music I could explain without demonstrating physically,” he said.

However, he never stopped hearing music in his head and eventually — 10 years after his stroke — took up piano again, teaching himself to play with only his left hand.

“Even when I was very sick, even when I regained my consciousness just after I had the stroke, I also was hearing music,” he said.

When he sat down at the piano he realised he could still remember everything he had learnt.

“I discovered the music of Leopold Godowsky (from) 100 years ago,” he said.

“This Godowsky had a lot of music for left hand alone, so I got obsessed with Godowsky and I’m still playing, I’m still learning.”

Ha recently performed for an audience at Inala after talking to a friend who works there about his desire to perform again.

When Ha started to play in front of the crowd, the buzz he used to get from performing came flooding back.

“All those memories, like 10-year-old memories, came back ,” he said.

Ha plans to perform again - at Inala and “wherever people invite me”.

“I never thought about inspiring others, but people kept on saying, ‘You are an inspiration’,” he said.