December 7, 2023 • 13 mins
AAMI woman, White Stick Fest regular, now qualified music therapist and Carols by Candlelight performer for a second year running, Lara Nakhle joins Vision Australia presenter Sam Colley to reflect on her first experience of performing at the Carols in 2022 and her return to the stage this year.
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S1 (00:04):
Lara, thanks so much for being here today.
S2 (00:07):
Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to be back.
S1 (00:10):
Now, Lara, can we firstly start by congratulating you for
completing your creative music therapy degree?
S2 (00:17):
Oh, it feels absolutely amazing to finally be done with it.
I was studying a masters of Creative Music Therapy for
the last three years, and it was quite challenging at times.
It's great to have that finally out of the way.
S1 (00:32):
And was the course what you expected or were there
any surprises?
S2 (00:37):
Basically, I was the first fully blind student to be
doing the course and they didn't really know what to expect.
So I had my audition and they said that it
would be pretty easy, like I'd get through it, but
I actually had quite a few stumbling blocks along the way,
(00:59):
especially when it came to sorting out some of my placements.
They didn't really know how a vision impaired or blind
student would go with that, so I actually had to
come up with some strategies for dealing with clients with
complex needs and groups, because I had a few placements
(01:20):
in group settings as well. That was a bit difficult.
But yeah, another thing is I had to really advocate
for myself in terms of accessibility because they didn't really
know how to make the documents very accessible at times. Overall,
it was okay. Like once they knew how to accommodate
(01:42):
for my needs and I got through it.
S1 (01:45):
And did they know much about Braille music? Like, for example,
how much music did you have to have prepared and
converted into braille for metals, more sort of readings and
text documents.
S2 (01:58):
So I didn't actually need to be able to read
music for the course. Okay, which kind of sounds surprising
considering like that it was a music therapy course and everything,
but so, for example, with one of the assessments that
we had to do in a couple of the semesters,
it was a composition and everyone had to provide a
(02:19):
printed score, so they had to actually write out the
music themselves. But for me, what the teachers made me
do was like an audio recording of the piano part
by itself, and maybe the vocals by itself, and then
also write a description like what each part would play,
and also a lead sheet with like the letters of
(02:40):
each chord above the lyrics.
S1 (02:42):
And you know, you've finished that course at a really
good time, where your music career is really taking off.
So how did you go balancing the two at the time?
Did music or the course have to take a backseat
for a bit, or did they kind of alternate based
on the workload?
S2 (03:00):
So most of my gigs were in the second half
of the year, although I did have a few earlier
in the year as well. Yeah, mainly around July until
December was when I had the most amount of gigs
and performances. Yeah, like I wasn't gigging regularly, like a
(03:21):
lot of musicians do, and I was mainly focusing on
the course. I actually worked at the Apple Store for
a whole year. That was kind of my priority for
that time. Uni kind of took a backseat, so I
dropped down from full time to part time at one point. Yeah.
So I guess, like, I've just kind of had to
(03:43):
balance everything that I'm doing. Like, well.
S1 (03:46):
It sounds like you've done a fantastic job with, you know,
completing the course. And yeah.
S2 (03:51):
I tried my.
S1 (03:51):
Best. Oh no, it sounds like you did a great
job in amongst all of that. It's been a big
year for you in other areas as well. So, you know,
of course one of the things you worked on was
the shift 20 initiative. Yes. LED by the Dylan Alcott Foundation,
in which you've taken the role of Amy Woman. Yeah.
And you've also recorded the famous Amy jingle. So yes,
(04:13):
I did come about. That's pretty.
S2 (04:15):
Cool. Okay, so last year when I was invited to
a dinner with a few of the people from Virgin
Australia and one of the marketing managers from Amy, I
was very surprised to find out that Amy was a
sponsor of carols. And so my mum happened to randomly
(04:36):
say that when I was at school, I used to
walk around singing Lucky You're with Amy. Yeah, I was
a bit of a strange kid. Yeah, like I always
used to walk around singing jingles from ads because for
some reason I thought it was cool. I don't know
why or how, but the marketing manager asked me to
(04:57):
sing it, so I did, and she was like, oh
my gosh, I've got goosebumps. I'd really like you to
be the Amy girl. On an Amy ad at one point.
I want to make that happen. So yeah, that was
pretty exciting. And then a few months later, I received
an email from her saying that they would like me
(05:19):
to be involved in the Amy Does campaign, which is
basically just the Amy ad, and it was going to
be shown everywhere. Yeah. And that was part of the
shift 20 initiative by Dylan Alcott, which aims to raise
awareness about people with disabilities and highlighting their strengths.
S1 (05:41):
I wouldn't call them strange or weird and all those
people out there who, you know, all those little kids
who love singing jingles. You're not strange or weird, but
I prefer the term, you know, interesting or eccentric or different.
So yeah, definitely encourage people out there if they are
a fan of a jingle. Keep it going. You never
know what happened. And, you know, have you been surprised
(06:03):
by the response? What's it been like so far?
S2 (06:06):
Yeah, I've been extremely surprised. For starters, I didn't expect
the ad to be showing as much as it does
on TV, especially like even people who don't watch TV
have seen it as well on social media. And they've
come up to me and said, oh, are you the
girl on the Amy ad? Like just random people in
(06:29):
the shops? Or if I'm walking my guide dog Maxwell,
like around the block or once at an airport, someone
came up to me and said, oh, excuse me, are
you the Amy girl? And I was like, yes, yeah,
like so many people have seen it.
S1 (06:45):
And how does Maxwell go with all the attention is
he is they what they think about the whole situation?
S2 (06:51):
During the shoot, we had to walk in a diagonal
line a few times so that they could get the
right angle. At one point, Maxwell just randomly decided to
slowly drop to the ground and so he slid down.
And that's the shot that they ended up using for
the ad for the end frame, which I'm in. So
(07:13):
one of my friends actually told me when she first
saw it that it looked like Maxwell was just a
bit over it, that he wasn't really bothered. But yeah,
a lot of people have said that he looks very cute.
S1 (07:27):
What does the shift 20 initiative mean to you? And
more broadly, what do you hope will be the impact
for people living with disability?
S2 (07:36):
So the Shift 20 initiative aims to raise awareness about
the fact that there's 1 in 5 people with a
disability in Australia like so that's 20% of people, which
is a fair amount, I would say. And and it's
about showing that they can actually do things that non-disabled
(07:58):
people do, such as having a job, having insurance, like
various different tasks, and basically just providing representation on screen.
Because up until now, most people with disabilities have not
really been represented on TV like they do occasionally, but
(08:22):
not in like regular ads. I think it would have
a pretty massive impact for the general community, because a
lot of people are not used to seeing people with
disabilities in public or on TV in general in society.
So hopefully it would help to break down that barrier.
S1 (08:44):
On the sort of related topic you're back with us to. Again,
share that you'll be performing at Carols by Candlelight.
S2 (08:52):
Yes, I will be, yeah.
S1 (08:53):
So can you share what it's like to, you know,
what it was like to step out onto the stage
at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl last year?
S2 (09:01):
Last year, performing at Carols by Candlelight was very, very exciting.
It was honestly like one of the highlights so far
in my whole performing life. I guess I got to
meet so many famous people. It was honestly amazing and
(09:22):
so much fun as well. Like even though, like, not
many people really knew who I was because, you know,
I was just a newbie. Everyone was just so supportive
backstage and like cheering everyone on. And it was just
a really nice atmosphere to be part of. I was
a bit nervous when I first went out on stage,
(09:45):
but then as soon as I sat at the piano
and the song started, I was okay.
S1 (09:51):
And that's that's pretty incredible to be, you know, sitting
at the piano and singing like, I'm. I've been playing
piano my whole life, and I couldn't imagine trying to
do them both at the same time. So that's. Credible
effort to to do that. Thanks. Is that Tom? Have
you been doing that, Tom, your whole life, or is
(10:12):
that sort of just been a recent thing?
S2 (10:15):
I'm so I've pretty much been doing it my whole
life since I was about eight and a half. Although
back then I wasn't great at it. Like I've had
to practice for many, many years. But before that, like,
I tried teaching myself how to play piano because I
had a toy piano from when I was about two.
S1 (10:34):
I love that.
S2 (10:35):
Yeah, yeah. So I just tried teaching myself like nursery
rhymes or songs that I would randomly hear when I
was walking. Yeah. And like, my parents realized that I
liked music and I wanted to learn how to play piano.
So that's why they enrolled me in music lessons, and
(10:56):
everything just went from there.
S1 (10:58):
Oh, cool. And, you know, last year you performed Love
Is Christmas. So can you give us any teasers now
for what song we'll hear from you this year or.
S2 (11:08):
Well, I can't exactly reveal what song I'll be doing. However,
what I can tell you is it's basically a cover
of an old Christmas carol that everyone knows well, I
guess most people would, but it has new lyrics. The
lyrics were inspired by some of the kids from Vision Australia.
S1 (11:30):
You've spoken about this a little bit already, Lara, but
what's carols been like for you in terms of rubbing
shoulders with other musicians who you've maybe looked up to
for a while? Have you been able to collaborate with
any of them?
S2 (11:44):
I was actually recently performing at a gig for International
Day of People with disability, where John Foreman was also
a performer, so that was pretty exciting.
S1 (11:56):
Finally, Lara, I mean, what can we expect from you
in 2024? Is there anything exciting that you'd like to share.
S2 (12:04):
So very soon I'll be a registered music therapist because
I completed uni in October, and then I completed placement
only last week. That was my last day last Tuesday.
Hopefully next year I'll be working as a registered music
therapist with various clients to help them achieve their goals.
(12:25):
And I'd also definitely like to continue performing at different events.
And one of my biggest goals that I've been wanting
to do for a very long time is actually write
more original music. So I'm hoping to work with some
producers and artists to collaborate on some songs.
S1 (12:46):
Well, thank you so much for your time today. It
is a pleasure to catch up with you and hear
about the carols and all the exciting things that have
been going on in 2023 and of course, looking forward
into 2024 and beyond.
S2 (13:01):
Thank you so much. It was great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Lara, thanks so much for being here today.
S2 (00:07):
Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to be back.
S1 (00:10):
Now, Lara, can we firstly start by congratulating you for
completing your creative music therapy degree?
S2 (00:17):
Oh, it feels absolutely amazing to finally be done with it.
I was studying a masters of Creative Music Therapy for
the last three years, and it was quite challenging at times.
It's great to have that finally out of the way.
S1 (00:32):
And was the course what you expected or were there
any surprises?
S2 (00:37):
Basically, I was the first fully blind student to be
doing the course and they didn't really know what to expect.
So I had my audition and they said that it
would be pretty easy, like I'd get through it, but
I actually had quite a few stumbling blocks along the way,
(00:59):
especially when it came to sorting out some of my placements.
They didn't really know how a vision impaired or blind
student would go with that, so I actually had to
come up with some strategies for dealing with clients with
complex needs and groups, because I had a few placements
(01:20):
in group settings as well. That was a bit difficult.
But yeah, another thing is I had to really advocate
for myself in terms of accessibility because they didn't really
know how to make the documents very accessible at times. Overall,
it was okay. Like once they knew how to accommodate
(01:42):
for my needs and I got through it.
S1 (01:45):
And did they know much about Braille music? Like, for example,
how much music did you have to have prepared and
converted into braille for metals, more sort of readings and
text documents.
S2 (01:58):
So I didn't actually need to be able to read
music for the course. Okay, which kind of sounds surprising
considering like that it was a music therapy course and everything,
but so, for example, with one of the assessments that
we had to do in a couple of the semesters,
it was a composition and everyone had to provide a
(02:19):
printed score, so they had to actually write out the
music themselves. But for me, what the teachers made me
do was like an audio recording of the piano part
by itself, and maybe the vocals by itself, and then
also write a description like what each part would play,
and also a lead sheet with like the letters of
(02:40):
each chord above the lyrics.
S1 (02:42):
And you know, you've finished that course at a really
good time, where your music career is really taking off.
So how did you go balancing the two at the time?
Did music or the course have to take a backseat
for a bit, or did they kind of alternate based
on the workload?
S2 (03:00):
So most of my gigs were in the second half
of the year, although I did have a few earlier
in the year as well. Yeah, mainly around July until
December was when I had the most amount of gigs
and performances. Yeah, like I wasn't gigging regularly, like a
(03:21):
lot of musicians do, and I was mainly focusing on
the course. I actually worked at the Apple Store for
a whole year. That was kind of my priority for
that time. Uni kind of took a backseat, so I
dropped down from full time to part time at one point. Yeah.
So I guess, like, I've just kind of had to
(03:43):
balance everything that I'm doing. Like, well.
S1 (03:46):
It sounds like you've done a fantastic job with, you know,
completing the course. And yeah.
S2 (03:51):
I tried my.
S1 (03:51):
Best. Oh no, it sounds like you did a great
job in amongst all of that. It's been a big
year for you in other areas as well. So, you know,
of course one of the things you worked on was
the shift 20 initiative. Yes. LED by the Dylan Alcott Foundation,
in which you've taken the role of Amy Woman. Yeah.
And you've also recorded the famous Amy jingle. So yes,
(04:13):
I did come about. That's pretty.
S2 (04:15):
Cool. Okay, so last year when I was invited to
a dinner with a few of the people from Virgin
Australia and one of the marketing managers from Amy, I
was very surprised to find out that Amy was a
sponsor of carols. And so my mum happened to randomly
(04:36):
say that when I was at school, I used to
walk around singing Lucky You're with Amy. Yeah, I was
a bit of a strange kid. Yeah, like I always
used to walk around singing jingles from ads because for
some reason I thought it was cool. I don't know
why or how, but the marketing manager asked me to
(04:57):
sing it, so I did, and she was like, oh
my gosh, I've got goosebumps. I'd really like you to
be the Amy girl. On an Amy ad at one point.
I want to make that happen. So yeah, that was
pretty exciting. And then a few months later, I received
an email from her saying that they would like me
(05:19):
to be involved in the Amy Does campaign, which is
basically just the Amy ad, and it was going to
be shown everywhere. Yeah. And that was part of the
shift 20 initiative by Dylan Alcott, which aims to raise
awareness about people with disabilities and highlighting their strengths.
S1 (05:41):
I wouldn't call them strange or weird and all those
people out there who, you know, all those little kids
who love singing jingles. You're not strange or weird, but
I prefer the term, you know, interesting or eccentric or different.
So yeah, definitely encourage people out there if they are
a fan of a jingle. Keep it going. You never
know what happened. And, you know, have you been surprised
(06:03):
by the response? What's it been like so far?
S2 (06:06):
Yeah, I've been extremely surprised. For starters, I didn't expect
the ad to be showing as much as it does
on TV, especially like even people who don't watch TV
have seen it as well on social media. And they've
come up to me and said, oh, are you the
girl on the Amy ad? Like just random people in
(06:29):
the shops? Or if I'm walking my guide dog Maxwell,
like around the block or once at an airport, someone
came up to me and said, oh, excuse me, are
you the Amy girl? And I was like, yes, yeah,
like so many people have seen it.
S1 (06:45):
And how does Maxwell go with all the attention is
he is they what they think about the whole situation?
S2 (06:51):
During the shoot, we had to walk in a diagonal
line a few times so that they could get the
right angle. At one point, Maxwell just randomly decided to
slowly drop to the ground and so he slid down.
And that's the shot that they ended up using for
the ad for the end frame, which I'm in. So
(07:13):
one of my friends actually told me when she first
saw it that it looked like Maxwell was just a
bit over it, that he wasn't really bothered. But yeah,
a lot of people have said that he looks very cute.
S1 (07:27):
What does the shift 20 initiative mean to you? And
more broadly, what do you hope will be the impact
for people living with disability?
S2 (07:36):
So the Shift 20 initiative aims to raise awareness about
the fact that there's 1 in 5 people with a
disability in Australia like so that's 20% of people, which
is a fair amount, I would say. And and it's
about showing that they can actually do things that non-disabled
(07:58):
people do, such as having a job, having insurance, like
various different tasks, and basically just providing representation on screen.
Because up until now, most people with disabilities have not
really been represented on TV like they do occasionally, but
(08:22):
not in like regular ads. I think it would have
a pretty massive impact for the general community, because a
lot of people are not used to seeing people with
disabilities in public or on TV in general in society.
So hopefully it would help to break down that barrier.
S1 (08:44):
On the sort of related topic you're back with us to. Again,
share that you'll be performing at Carols by Candlelight.
S2 (08:52):
Yes, I will be, yeah.
S1 (08:53):
So can you share what it's like to, you know,
what it was like to step out onto the stage
at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl last year?
S2 (09:01):
Last year, performing at Carols by Candlelight was very, very exciting.
It was honestly like one of the highlights so far
in my whole performing life. I guess I got to
meet so many famous people. It was honestly amazing and
(09:22):
so much fun as well. Like even though, like, not
many people really knew who I was because, you know,
I was just a newbie. Everyone was just so supportive
backstage and like cheering everyone on. And it was just
a really nice atmosphere to be part of. I was
a bit nervous when I first went out on stage,
(09:45):
but then as soon as I sat at the piano
and the song started, I was okay.
S1 (09:51):
And that's that's pretty incredible to be, you know, sitting
at the piano and singing like, I'm. I've been playing
piano my whole life, and I couldn't imagine trying to
do them both at the same time. So that's. Credible
effort to to do that. Thanks. Is that Tom? Have
you been doing that, Tom, your whole life, or is
(10:12):
that sort of just been a recent thing?
S2 (10:15):
I'm so I've pretty much been doing it my whole
life since I was about eight and a half. Although
back then I wasn't great at it. Like I've had
to practice for many, many years. But before that, like,
I tried teaching myself how to play piano because I
had a toy piano from when I was about two.
S1 (10:34):
I love that.
S2 (10:35):
Yeah, yeah. So I just tried teaching myself like nursery
rhymes or songs that I would randomly hear when I
was walking. Yeah. And like, my parents realized that I
liked music and I wanted to learn how to play piano.
So that's why they enrolled me in music lessons, and
(10:56):
everything just went from there.
S1 (10:58):
Oh, cool. And, you know, last year you performed Love
Is Christmas. So can you give us any teasers now
for what song we'll hear from you this year or.
S2 (11:08):
Well, I can't exactly reveal what song I'll be doing. However,
what I can tell you is it's basically a cover
of an old Christmas carol that everyone knows well, I
guess most people would, but it has new lyrics. The
lyrics were inspired by some of the kids from Vision Australia.
S1 (11:30):
You've spoken about this a little bit already, Lara, but
what's carols been like for you in terms of rubbing
shoulders with other musicians who you've maybe looked up to
for a while? Have you been able to collaborate with
any of them?
S2 (11:44):
I was actually recently performing at a gig for International
Day of People with disability, where John Foreman was also
a performer, so that was pretty exciting.
S1 (11:56):
Finally, Lara, I mean, what can we expect from you
in 2024? Is there anything exciting that you'd like to share.
S2 (12:04):
So very soon I'll be a registered music therapist because
I completed uni in October, and then I completed placement
only last week. That was my last day last Tuesday.
Hopefully next year I'll be working as a registered music
therapist with various clients to help them achieve their goals.
(12:25):
And I'd also definitely like to continue performing at different events.
And one of my biggest goals that I've been wanting
to do for a very long time is actually write
more original music. So I'm hoping to work with some
producers and artists to collaborate on some songs.
S1 (12:46):
Well, thank you so much for your time today. It
is a pleasure to catch up with you and hear
about the carols and all the exciting things that have
been going on in 2023 and of course, looking forward
into 2024 and beyond.
S2 (13:01):
Thank you so much. It was great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
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