The Pianist With Inch-Long Fingers

Concert pianist and buskers’ music man Richard Healey was born with fingers only an inch long, but you would not know it to hear him play.

Healey is a World Buskers Festival first-timer, playing the piano for Lili la Scala and cabaret act Dusty Limits.

While he likes to tell people his fingers were chopped off by a slammed piano lid, he was actually born with a gene which prevented his fingers from growing past the first knuckle.

The gene is carried on his mother’s side, with his siblings also carrying the condition.

Despite this, his grandmother taught him to play piano at age six, and it has led to a 32-year career.

”It wasn’t a conscious thing,” Healey said.

”I make quite a bit of my living with the piano, but it wasn’t a torch to conquer the world with or anything.”

Healey adapts the music he plays to suit his hands as it is tricky for his hands to spread the full length of some chords.

Healey’s first festival this year is a result of his pairing with Felicity Wills, aka Lili la Scala, a regular performer at the festival.

He and Wills have been performing together for about two years, but did not come to the last festival because she was pregnant.

The pair is performing a cabaret act this year – a change from the burlesque we are used to seeing from Wills.