The star of the show

Watching a few videos of pianist Cecile Licad on YouTube brings back memories of a fun incident during her solo piano recital at the 2002 Singapore Piano Festival which I attended: The audience was sitting during the intermission discussing the merits of first part of the recital when a piano tuner came onto the stage to tune the piano which had taken quite a beating--for Licad had just performed a demanding set of piano pieces by Liszt. A few murmurs and chuckles went through the crowd as the man went about his work. Then when he was done, the grateful audience applauded and gave him a cheer for his "performance". In response he grinned, waved and gave a bow before walking offstage.