Article published in Manchester Evening News 13 November 2015

WHEN Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero appeared solo at the Bridgewater Hall last year, the most amazing thing – as well as her mastery of classical repertoire – was the last part.

She improvized three dazzling pieces on ideas contributed then and there by the audience. She likes to do it whenever she can, conjuring new creations out of thin air with fluency and bravura that would be the envy of many who’ve practised their music for years.

She’s appearing as soloist with Manchester Camerata and violinist Giovanni Guzzo at the Royal Northern College of Music on November 22 (3pm), and her job is first to play the popular Mozart piano concerto in E flat (no. 14).

But after that she’ll improvize on themes suggested by the audience. Her ability is a remarkable gift, not so much the fruit of training as innate: something most people would call a kind of genius.

She was actually told not to do it by one of her classical teachers. But when she met Martha Argerich, the great Argentinian piano virtuosa, in 2001, she had her moment of revelation.

“She said to me, ‘You have a unique gift, and you need to share it with the world.’ From that point on I’ve been improvizing in all my recitals.”

I asked her what is in her mind as she makes her instant creations. “When I’m doing it, I’m just allowing music to go through my body,” she says. “It’s almost as if I’m witnessing what I’m playing just like the audience. It seems as if part of my brain shuts down. And a lot of my improvizations are very, very fast. I seem to kick into a different gear, neurologically.”

She’s got evidence for that: she’s been taking part in a medical study to compare what goes on in her brain when she improvizes with its state when she plays a prepared work.

Gabriela began piano lessons at four and gave her first concerto at eight.  Later she got a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London and won third prize in the Chopin Competition in 1995.

Today, married to Irish opera singer Sam McIlroy, she has a new home in Barcelona, and a new stage in her career, with rapturous receptions from public and press. But she says: “Applause never meant much to me. It’s really about the reasons for dedicating my life to music.”